Since the unraveling of the U.S. economy you hear many people shouting from the rooftops “I want my country back”. At the gist of this statement is a need to capture the greatness of a previous moment in U.S. history that was for the betterment of the individual. As many would say, “the good ole days”. For many, the current economic and political environment has created a lot of uncertainty in their lives. However, I have a couple issues with this statement. First off, who are the individuals who want to go back in time? Second, how far back would they like to go? Third, who do they feel took the country from them? Fourth, where do they live? Five, what is their current economic level? Six, what was their current economic level at the time they would like to go back to? If you posed this question to a million people you would probably get a million types of answers.

A lot of people in this U.S. have had their heads in the sand for a while (On certain things I can include myself in this category). To be honest, I have been part of the problem in one way or another, so these criticisms are not only leveled at others, but also myself. We have now become so delusional and desperate for an economic antidote that recent polls show that 36% of Americans wish for the economic policies of Ronald Reagan. I would like to know who these people are, but that’s quite a considerable number knowing the “Gipper’s” economic policies were pretty disastrous. Although many have debunked the merits of the “Reagan Revolution”, many romantic nostalgists just won’t let go. That’s not to say there weren’t people who benefited from the policies of Reagan, but collectively his policies were a disaster. Just ask former budget Director David Stockman on how ‘wonderful” the economic Reagan era was.

The disruptive social and economic “bullet” was fired decades ago. Let’s paint a picture. Just imagine millions, maybe even billions of people lined up after one another. An individual fires a bullet (economic instability and social disruption) from a gun. When you get hit with that bullet it’s economic anarchy for you. In that same line, many folks were, lets say number 10267 to get fired upon. Some were even in the hundredth and millionth or billionth.  If you were towards the back of the line it wasn’t your problem because  33,  672, 45976, 273192, 834165, 5938200242 are getting socially and economically “murked” way before you. Many even thought, “oh it will never get to me” or even “Maybe the bullet will lose its momentum and velocity” before it gets to me. Or maybe in denial about the destruction of the bullet, “Maybe the bullet won’t hurt when it gets to me”. Maybe they felt it was someone else’s problem.

Now that the bullet is racing forward and it’s, as O.C. said, “Times Up“, people are clamoring around for answers as to what happened.  Of course it would be “nice” to go back in time when the bullet wasn’t so close to home. The net of economic disruption had already been cast. Now that person is in the net with everyone else.

This reminds me of the Columbine father that said the following:

I am here today because my son Daniel would want me to be here today. If my son Daniel was not one of the victims, he would be here with me today. Something is wrong in this country when a child can grab a gun, grab a gun so easily, and shoot a bullet into the middle of a child’s face, as my son experienced. Something is wrong. But the time has come to come to understand that a Tech-9 semi-automatic -bullet weapon like that, that killed my son, is not used to kill deer. It has no useful purpose. It is time to address this problem.

It’s sad to see any father lose their son to such horrific violence, but at the time, we had already reached the tipping point where guns were in the hands of our youth. The carnage has now reached “everyones” doorstep, but many doorsteps have already been visited by gun violence. The anarchy is now more widespread. Now that we have shared economic grief, we are harking back to the “good ole days”. Keep in mind that there were many before you that have been living with these wounds, but your wounds are now fresh.

I remember a discussion I had with a close family member in the mid 90s and we were talking about the gang violence that had been prevalent in a neighborhood right next to ours. The town was Roosevelt, Long Island in New York. At the time the Bloods and Crips had made significant inroads into the neighborhood. We lived in Uniondale, about a stones throw away. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Wow, we really need to do something about this gang violence. A lot people getting killed in Roosevelt
Family Member: Well that’s Roosevelt, you know how THEY are
Me: Hmmm…well what happens when the gangs come to Uniondale?
Family Member: No, that won’t happen. This is Uniondale, gangs don’t come to Uniondale
Me: I don’t think so. If we don’t take care of the surrounding communities around us, we are definitely going to have gangs here
Family Member: [blank stare]

As expected, the Bloods and the Crips made their way into Uniondale and although the degree of our gang problem was lesser than Roosevelt, we still had people getting shot over gang violence and whatnot. In short, when the economic plane goes down it won’t matter that you paid $5000 dollars for your first-class ticket. Irrespective of your seating arrangement, we are all going down. It’s just a matter of who hits the ground first.

In September 2009 I wrote a post about learning the roots of the 2008 Financial Crisis. It really gets to the crux of why I was compelled to go on somewhat of an economic “expedition” to find out what went wrong with the U.S. economic system in 2008. Prior to the crisis there I wasn’t aware of any body of economic work that intelligently outlined the causes (not just the symptoms) of the financial crisis than the Austrian School of Economics. As I’ve said in earlier posts, I truly believe that the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) is by far one of the most complete descriptions of the “science”, if you will, of economic booms and busts. In addition to the ABCT, I believe that the Austrians have a way of interweaving a healthy amount of skepticism when it relates to the government intervening in the broader economy.

Unfortunately many other economic disciplines make wild assumptions, often very overly optimistic assumptions about the value of government intervention. At the same time, I have my own skepticism on the benefits of a 100% Libertarian approach to our social and political problems, but they clearly have the right pulse on many of the causes of how financial markets and economic incentives can be distorted by “well intentioned” governments. Private corporations don’t get off the hook, but in the context of the financial crisis, they worked in tandem with the government to completely destroy the economy.

I want to make a couple of points:

1. Be an economic policy skeptic. All policy isn’t created equal. As a matter of fact, many of the policy “prescriptions” by the government were completely backward and financially destructive and/or these policies were instituted to benefit a few while impoverishing many.
2. Read some of the suggested resources below. As a matter fact, read as much economic policy as you can. Many times you’ll get to the “real” intentions behind a lot of these policies.
3. Your Congress is bought (Thank you Dylan Ratigan from MSNBC). Please watch the video below and make sure you listen to every single word. If it’s not clear after you watch this video that voting for these cronies is a waste of time, then just off yourself. Okay..that was a joke..don’t off yourself but really understand that depending on our “do nothing” Congress is a waste of time.
4. The only option left is civil disobedience. What I like to call “soft” anarchy. Be an active participant in the economy. Vote with your pocket. Our government was not always enslaved to corporate interests. This can be undone, but it’s going to take a lot more than marching, waving hands, and holding creatively snark protest signs in different cities. There’s trillions of dollars at stake and if a high level of creative destruction doesn’t take place by the people, then we are playing a very dangerous, albeit participatory charade of musical “armchair revolutionary” chairs. Instead of sitting at home or in a cafe we are sitting in the streets.

Books

• Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi
• Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry by Dylan Ratigan
• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
• Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
• The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman
• America’s Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard
• Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Ron Paul

(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

At the root of every social movement is the will to change the present situation for something better. At the root of the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has now moved to other cities around the country, the intention of this movement is to unhook the almost parasitical tentacles of Wall Street from government policy (Washington). More on this here

I don’t believe ANY significant changes will happen via government policy or Washington’s intervention. Washington is an entity that is in the last stages of terminal “political” cancer. At the end of the day, this has to result in the banking firms that were responsible for this crisis to be reprimanded for their corporate malfeasance. We should reward (with our business) those financial institutions that are fiscally responsible, and move our money out of those financial institutions that contributed to the financial crisis.

I’m not convinced that the TBTF banks really understand what they did, nor does our government really care to prosecute these banks who irresponsibly unhinged the global economy for their narrow benefit.

So what we truly need to occupy, is our apathy. It’s our apathy and reluctance to being properly engaged in our political process that has contributed to Wall Street usurping power from the laymen and laywomen. In short, we kept our eye off the ball for too long. This corporate takeover has been happening for decades. Some would say it’s been happening since the inception of the Federal Reserve Bank. Regardless of when you think international banks started unsettling our political process, we are clearly at a tipping point where banks have complete control over our political process.

My suggestion is we engage in a bit of creative destruction to bring the balance of power back into the hands of where it belongs. the Proletariat and many of the hard working people of America (and around the world) who watched their jobs, wealth, financial security and personal livelihood go up in flames by the Wall Street, Federal Reserve Bank, Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) doomsday machine.

We should start with the following approach:

1. Remove all your assets and loans (checking, savings, IRA, Mutual funds, Brokerage accounts, credit cards, car loans, mortgages, etc) from all banks that were given a bailout from the government.
2. Take all those assets/loans and transfer them to a credit union or firm that was not given a bailout.
3. Everyone who did the first 2 steps should draft a personal letter using their own words and explain to the banks/investment firms (who no longer have your business) why you removed all your money. In addition to that, explain why you moved your assets to the other bank/investment firm.

It’s time to transform our thoughts into action. Show these banks and our “absentee landlord” government that they cannot push our society to the edge of financial oblivion, while profiting off that same financial destruction.

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. – Bob Hope

Related Links

Over the years I’ve watched Jon Stewart eviscerate political hacks and pundits since 2004. I’ve decided to showcase some of Jon Stewart’s greatest political smashes. If you are still not a believer, keep in mind that the Daily Show beat Fox News in ratings in May. Without further ado, I give you Jon Stewart’s Greatest Political Hits:

Jon Stewart smashes Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on CNN’s Crossfire on October 15, 2004

Jon Stewart highlights CNBC’s dishonest speculation and upside-down economics on March 4th, 2009

Jon Stewart gives Jim Cramer the truth razors in regards to Jim’s Mad Money being completely “Mad” on March 12th, 2009 Part 1

Jon Stewart gives Jim Cramer the truth razors in regards to Jim’s Mad Money being completely “Mad” on March 12th, 2009 PART 2

Jon Stewart gives Jim Cramer the truth razors regarding Jim’s Mad Money being completely “Mad” on March 12th, 2009 PART 3

Jon Stewart gives Chris Wallace from Fox News a tongue lashing for comparing news to a comedy show on June 18th, 2011

Use History as Guide to Help Your Present Situation

If you’ve made it this far, then I applaud you, and if you haven’t then I applaud you anyway. In today’s modern day junk food culture it’s extremely difficult to keep anyone’s attention-even when the information is ripe for the picking, like picking a succulent mango off a tree on a hot day in Kingston. Su, whua yu a wayt fa, pik it, nuh man? (patois translation: What are you waiting for, pick it?)

Knowing the TRUE history and it’s related value is like having a homing beacon in the vast darkness of unchartered space. It’s there as guide to direct you to safety. Why? Because history is a set of examples that that give you a foundation to build an intelligent blueprint for self-mastery and cultural development. As Malcolm X so eloquently stated:

History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.

I have broken this post up into 3-mini parts. This is 3a and 3b/3c will be coming in the next couple weeks. I’m trying break up this post into smaller chunks to make it more digestible. In this very integral part of the BLF, we are going to utilize this segment to enlighten people with the seeds of historic truth. We will bury the hear-say and uproot the facts based on empirics. We must all remember that no matter how wise we think we are we will always be students. In this segment we will not only expound on cultural history, but economic, religious, mass-media and nation-state history.

To shorten up the post I have added show/hide buttons on the details of the Forum Participants. Just toggle on/off the more button to see the participants for a particular topic.

A Brief History of African Civilization

Unfortunately, there is no way we can cover the 10,000 years of African Civilization in one segment, but what we can give is a window into some of rich cultural history that Africa has laid for present day societies. Contrary to popular belief, Africa is not only the starting point for civilization, but has contributed an immense dearth of cultural and spiritual enlightenment for today’s societies. This segment is not about “Africanizing” areas in history where there was no African contribution, but to simply give credit to where credit is due. We must understand that Africa was not at the foot of civilization, but one of many heads of civilization that help lay down advanced societal frameworks. Some might scoff and say “Yeah right, look at Africa today, no way a continent like this was part of anything great”. Under this same upside-down logic we can use that same yard stick for many Westernized nations today.

Look at the current economic state U.S, Japan, and many European countries. Currently saddled with so much debt they have to print fake currency and maintain their fiat based scam economy to pay their bills. All your hundreds of years of resource plundering, cheap labor (and slave labor), financial schemes, ponzi political system, draconian usury system, ethnic supremacist legal system and “crony capitalism” cannot save your economies. Where are you now? These are advanced civilizations? Inflating away your problems by printing money out of thin air? Imploding the global food supply by subsidizing your failed agricultural infrastructure with more printed money? Is this what you call a “free market”? Creating financial schemes and hiding behind debt with your off-balance sheet antics? Murdering people in other oil rich countries because you don’t have the courage or the brains to revamp your current energy needs? This is civil? Here’s a reminder from Dr. Henrike Clark on what civility is all about:

Civilization is the art of being civil. The word civil means being peaceful, and there’s nothing peaceful about aggression.

Presently there are many areas of Africa that are going through an economic revolution. All is not well, but there are power centers that’s transforming the entire continent. Now that the past IMF and World Bank loan schemes of gargantuan debt have been forgiven for some countries (rightfully so, because these were draconian and unjust sovereign debt schemes in the first place), many African countries have a bit more wiggle room to use that extra capital to rebuild their country. The goal of this segment is to put the history of African civilization in it’s proper context.

The History of Race and it’s Socio-economic Impacts

Although many would like to deny the acute relationship between race and economics and the rampant level of inequality that still exists today, this section is by far the most insightful. Why? One of the most important systems for wealth preservation is a system known as “generational wealth transfer”. Unfortunately this is social structure that African Americans have been privy to only in last 50 years, and by comparison to other cultures are generational wealth transfer capacity is extremely weak. In short, wealth that was generated at one point in history is systematically transferred to future heirs and family descendants so they can use that same wealth and generate more wealth. A colloquial term for this is “old money”. Old money has been sloshing around for hundreds of years-earning interest and being re-invested in the economy within certain cultural circles. Although many would like you to believe that everyone who is in power today “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”, I believe that certain circles have “pulled themselves up”, but have hidden the story of how they received the bootstrap in the first place. Some might bask in the self-serving glow of this idiom, but let’s remember that someone needed to produce that “bootstrap”, so you could pull yourself up in the first place.

In this segment we dig in on several types of history-ranging from religious history, history of wealth generation, socio-cultural history, and how the power of media transforms cultural identity. In order for any individual to understand the cultural and social paradigms of today, you HAVE to go back hundreds of years. There is no way around it. However it does not have to be a precarious “Where’s Waldo” approach. History leaves it’s cultural imprint on the minds and behaviors of the masses. It’s akin to tracking your lineage, but instead of “DNA” the empirical imprint is left on the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis. The people of this world are a dynamic and living embodiment of history in action. We just have to pause and identify why and how we got into our present day situation.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions for this series are welcome. If there are subjects that you believe should be included, let me know. Thanks for reading.

Don’t Believe the Hype. Healing comes first.

Hopefully you had a chance to read Part 1 of this series and get an idea of why I’m creating this series. if you haven’t I would suggest you read Part 1 first. so to continue the Forum I would start of with the first segment Don’t Believe the Hype. Healing Comes First.

So what exactly does this mean? Here is a re-cap from the first post:

Without the proper spiritual and mental healing, the next 3 parts of this post won’t mean much. This is about cleaning the mind, body and soul of all the toxic psychological and lifestyle impurities that divert us from greatness. So many of us talk about being powerful and independent but forget about having the proper dignity, candor, and humanity about themselves and the world around them. I believe this will help folks remove the self-hatred, spiritually deadening and self-defeating attitude that undermines our future.

In my eyes, outside of the most obvious barriers to proper self-development (institutional racism, poverty, inequality, pollution of religion, etc), there are three areas that I see have pinned the black community against itself:

1. Self-hatred
2. Loss of cultural history
3. Assimilation

I wish I had time to explain every single area but this is the top three:

Self-Hatred

The weird thing about self-hatred is it can take many forms. Some forms of self-hatred are more muted, while others are move obvious, like changing your skin color or getting a nose-job that reflects the ethnicity of another race. Some forms of self-hatred can take the form of socially or culturally distancing yourself from the ethnic group that you consider is a reminder of “your perceived” inferiority. Notice how I said, “your perceived” inferiority. It’s not that the inferiority actually exists, but that is how the dominant group has made you feel. Like a young women who considers herself inferior because her natural body weight is 160 pounds and anyone below that weight makes her feel like her body is inadequate. The brand of self-hatred I’m referring to is physical self-hatred. Like repressing the hatred you have for your nose, hair texture, skin color, lip size, or even how your body is shaped. These physical forms of self-hatred transform themselves into behaviors called “racial tweaking”. Racial tweaking is not redefining the whole self. It’s just changing a part of the self. Just changing enough to get beyond their own lack of self-esteem. Not necessarily by their own doing, but they have been cultured by the dominant social cultural paradigm to feel inadequate. The mechanism for identity change can be your social environment, entertainment, and other forms of “stereotype threats“. Now self-hatred is not a zero sum game. It’s extremely difficult to address, not to mention realizing you actually suffer from any form of self-hatred. It’s not like you can go to the doisufferfromselfhatred.com and take a test to score yourself. Not easy to tackle and usually requires years upon years to identify. Many of the individuals in this segment of the forum are experts at not only identifying the roots of self-hatred, but offering a plan to remove these mentally unstable stereotype threats.

In short, self-hatred pulls the community apart. Self-hatred does not allow the community to rise to it’s highest potential. Self-hatred breeds other bi-products like mistrust, low self-esteem, and in some extreme instances the coveting of the cultural traditions outside of your own, irrespective if that outside cultural tradition is destructive to you and your surrounding community. Self-hatred raises doubts about what you are personally capable of and the people you consider similar to you in culture, behavior, and tradition. I’ve seen it too many times to dismiss it as some psychological aberration that seldom invades our social space.

Loss of Cultural History

A person who doesn’t know their history is like a fish out of water. History serves as a guide to show you how to handle the future. The beautiful thing about history is we can learn from our ancestors on what worked and what didn’t work. In many instances, we can learn from the mistakes and triumphs from past civilizations while duplicating what worked and abandon what failed. In many instances I see problems of today, that were problems centuries ago. We ignore the past while trying to plant seeds of the future that are dependent on the lessons of the past. We have to recognize that history serves as a blueprint to master self-development. Many of you have heard me say, there is history, then there is “his-story”.

For many years I was a victim of “his-story”. For many years the only thing I was taught about my history was that people of African descent were “willing” slaves and then Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, the Black Reconstruction happened, and then Civil Rights, then Black Power Movement, and then Black people assimilated into America and everything was great. I’m sure for many black students today, you can add Obama is the First Black President then “everything is great”. My first introduction to real “Black History” was in college. After getting in to the specifics of the real history of people of African descent from the Mali and Songhai Empire, to the Universities of Timbuktu, our inventions and cultural footprint, the close ties to Islam and Africa, Kemet and it’s cultural contributions to the world stage, slave rebellions, the entrepreneurial and social successes of Tulsa, the thousands of inventions that created by inventors of African descent, and the list goes on, I was transformed.

Now some might say, ‘Well many ethnicities aren’t aware of their contributions of their ancestors and where they contributed in history”. They seem to be doing fine. That’s easy to overlook when you “haven’t” been implicitly or explicitly written out of the halls of historic significance. When the presidents of the most powerful country are your ethnicity and the faces that appear on one of the most powerful currencies are your ethnicity, and that same ethnicity has reaped the monetary gains for hundreds of years, it’s easy to say, “What’s the big deal?”. This is not an attack on any ethnicity, but a reminder of how history does play a role in how you see yourself. After getting the “Real Story” of what happened over thousands of years leading up to today, I was transformed. I wasn’t the same person I was before. My outlook on what was possible had changed forever. I’m mentioning this because there was a significant change in my social identity which impacted my sense of self. I now knew my place in the world stage and no one could take that away from me again. (inshallah)

Assimilation

Some might say assimilation is all bad. Like most things in life, it depends on where you are standing in the pool. If you are in the shallow end you are okay, but if you are in the deep end (and you can’t swim) you are going under. At the root of assimilation is identity. Who am I and Who do I want to be? The part of assimilation I’m referring to is culture and tradition. What type of social cultural constructs and traditions have we inculcated in our day-to-day life? What are the long term impacts of these decisions? Are these choices to our benefit or our demise? What are the historic roots of these traditions and practices that we’ve chosen or have been subtly coerced to chose? Who are the owners of these traditions and practices and who is the supreme beneficiary if I decide to inculcate a particular behavior into my life? In addition, what are the incentives to abandon my own set of principle for something else? Because the benefits and/or consequences of assimilating is not a zero sum game, you can see that there are a variety of questions one should ask as they develop their cultural and social identity. I don’t have a smoking gun, but I would encourage everyone to incorporate a reductionist approach about where you get your cultural values and social cues from. Seek out the root and sources of your behavior and traditions. Why do you associate yourself with certain cultural ideas? How have you been socialized or in some instances conditioned to believe a particular social idea? How is your identity tied to your social and cultural environment? Once again I have more questions than answers, but this reductionist exercise will serve as path to revealing who you are and to a certain degree, why you are?

Forum Participants:

Dr. Joy Degry Leary – Author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing.
Forum Topic: Self-Hatred, Assimilation, Loss of Cultural History
The first time I heard the term Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS), was I skeptically curious. In my head I felt, “Well slavery was a long time ago, and something that happened hundreds of years ago couldn’t possibly have any significant impact on my behavior or how I see things culturally?”. Well I’m here to say, I was wrong. Props to my home girl Melissa Alvarado for blessing me with this book. Dr. Joy Degry Leary’s books and related media have had a dramatic impact on my life that I now buy this book for different friends and family, and yes, not just black people. All my friends, no matter what their ethnicity, have been introduced to this book. As I said in the past, this book could very well be called “Why Slavery in America has Subconsciously Impacted Everyone in the Country, but Because We (Everyone) Had Cognitive Dissonance About the post-impacts of Slavery, We (Everyone) Thought the Long Term Psychological Collateral Damage did NOT Exist”.

Dr. John Rich – Author of Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men
Forum Topics: Self-Hatred
I read John Rich’s book a couple months back and what I found was a window into some of the psychological trauma that is endured when black men our held hostage by the violence that surrounds them. In some instances, these incidences of violence became the accepted norm. Now we’ve all heard about the bad news about violence in the black community, but is there any good news? The good news is that we can address this psychological trauma but it’s not easy. Being in an environment of violence creates a lingering feeling of Post-traumatic stress disorder. Like a soldier who has come back from war, it’s hard to turn off that heightened state of awareness and caution because this feeling of insecurity/fear/rage has been baked into the wiring of the mind. What Dr. Rich does is “levels” with us on the severity of violence and cautions us by explaining how dangerous it is to blame the victim. The community has to rally around and support our friends and families who have been victims of ultra-violence.

Sandra L. Bloom – Author of Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies
Forum Topics: Self-Hatred
I have not read this book yet, but Dr. John Rich was inspired by Sandra Bloom’s work which eventually led to Wrong Place, Wrong Time. What I really like about Sandra Bloom work is she’s attempting at resolving past social and psychological conflicts that destroy communities and tear way at human bonds. Nothing clearly demonstrates what she is trying to accomplish than the description from her book:

“Bloom and her colleagues have come to believe that unresolved, multi-generational, often forgotten trauma leads to a compulsion to repeat that is a powerful force in individual and social history. Because of this unresolved legacy of trauma, all of our social systems are “trauma-organized,” producing institutions which are unresponsive to and often directly counter to human needs.”

Tim Wise – Author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
Forum Topics: Assimilation, Loss of Cultural History
When it comes to articulating the depth, complexity, and history of inequality it doesn’t get better than Tim Wise. Obviously Tim Wise being white and having such a honest approach towards understanding the roots of ethnic privilege in America gives us an an insider view that we seldom hear about. In short, where does ethnicity play a role in the policy choices of America? Where does ethnicity play a role in the control of scare resources on planet earth? How are we all impacted by this “chess game” of self-interest and modern day tribal lines that in some instances fall along ethnic alliances? Tim Wise’s insight is akin to a placing a high powered microscope on racial and ethnic lines that have grown out of the imbalanced and often oppressive roots of America. Our cognitive dissonance about these critical matters is a form of self-medication. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist, but Tim Wise shines a big ole introspective bright light on that dissonance and breaks it down in areas where many so-called “social inequality” commentators fall short.

Dr. Claude M. Steele – Author of Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Issues of Our Time)
Forum Topics: Assimilation, Self-Hatred
The one thing that is really amazing about life, is you reach a point where you think you have absolute insight into a particular area, then someone comes along and knocks you out with a perspective that changes your life forever. Dr. Claude M Steele did that for me. His insight into the roots of what he calls “Stereotype Threats” and how they impact our behavior is worth it’s weight in gold. If the Board of Education had any heart they would make this required reading for every single teacher. I’m actually going to suggest this book to the Board of Education. It should also be required reading for students. The biggest problem with identity dysfunction and how we’ve been culturally socialized, is the roots of our issues are repressed. We wrap these foggy layers of repression around our identity problems in hopes that we can cloak them indefinitely. Once again, more dissonance. It’s extremely dangerous and can have long term effects on how we see ourselves in this grand social experiment, called life. Dr. Steele identifies these stereotype threats with clarity while offering honest solutions. Many of the authors and doctors in this forum offer answers. We are not left holding a bag of problems without having the proper solutions to help us to remove the items in the bag and putting them in a safe place so we are not directly impacted.

This is a quote I pulled from a brilliant documentary called A Great and Might Walk by Dr. John Henrike Clark. This documentary was produced in 1996 and executive produced by Wesley Snipes. Wesley also does some of the narration. Dr. Clark has so many quotables, he might as well be an emcee. I consider him the “emcee” of Pan-African History and Thought.

These closing thoughts remind me of how important it is keep an eye on the future, but still use the past as a guiding light. Talk is cheap and inaction is worse.

Dr. Henrike Clark’s closing thoughts from A Great and Mighty Walk (1996):

I do not think the African, Caribbean, and Blacks have studied to any degree and depth and seriousness the rise of modern Japan. Went into a war and loss. They sustained two atomic bombs. Had their country occupied. Now the people who defeated them are now begging them for commercial space. What did they do, that we have forgotten how to do?

They did some serious astute planning. Not loud mouthing, not boasting. They did not get on the radio or any platform or call them any names, but they did what they had to do.

If we are carrying out a well designed plan for liberation any literate person can contribute and share leadership. So if the leader dies while you are on page 13 move to page 14 and continue the struggle. Bury the man, continue the plan. I think any person who calls them self a leader, preacher, policy maker of any kind, should ask and answer the question in his own lifetime…How will my people stay on this earth? How will they be educated? How will they be schooled, and how will they be housed and how will they be defended.

The answers to these question will create the concept of enduring nationhood, because it creates the concept of enduring responsibility.

Before i get started, I created the image on the left myself, but I jacked this idea from Cafe Press. Just want to give props to those who deserve it. Creative capital is just important. One other very important point. The intent of this post is not to shame anyone. These are ideas and resources that I have accumulated over the last 15 years of my life, and were extremely helpful in my personal development. My intention is to spread useful information. Okay, now lets get started.

Over the last 10 years of my life I have seen a slew of “Black Leadership Forums” (BLF) or Black Agenda Forums (BAF) come and go. By far the “Bentley” of BLFs has been Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union or Round table. Although there has been recent pull back as people from the black community have questioned the “intentions” of his forums, nevertheless it has been seen as the “Lets Find Out What’s Happening With Black Folk Nationally” forum in regards to economics, politics, and various social issues. Even MSNBC and CNN have jumped into the BLF frey with their forums and specials. Al Sharpton just had his BLF last year, and the NAACP had one in July of 2010. Nevertheless, I’ve watched most of these forums, often with hope and weariness.

The total GDP of the African-American community makes us the 13th largest economy in the world. That’s right, only 0.6% of planet earth (African Americans) represents the 13th largest economy in the world. The African American/Black Market profile from the Magazine Publishers of America has slated the purchasing power of African Americans to hit the 1 trillion dollar mark by 2012. Now that’s not to say that all is well, but we clearly have something to work with.

I will break up this post into 5 parts. My hope is that I will be able to finish this before the end of Black History Month 2011. The first part (what you are reading now) is an explanation of my intent and what topics my fictional BLF will contain. In the middle three parts I will explain the the 3 areas that I deem extremely critical to what I will call Black Reconstruction 2.0.. The last part will have resources to every piece of media (books and film) that’s related to this topic. In each area I will list a group of individuals that I believe are the thought leaders who can offer Ideas that lead to solving critical problems, instead of people who give lip service to ideas that go nowhere. These are critical thinkers who continue to think outside of the box while not falling into the “arrogant trap” of their own egos and personal accomplishments. Bless those individuals who taken the time, effort, and necessary sacrifices to live by the creed of “each one teach one” and “am I my brother’s keeper”. Often said by many, but seldom done.

So lets get down to the nitty-gritty on what would my BLF look like, who would be there and what my agenda would be?

To set the stage of my fictional BLF, I would not have a BLF until I actually owned the building where the conference/forum would happen. What is the point of giving lip service to “being independent”, where you have to pay others to have a conversation about “being independent”. In addition to that, the hotel and related eateries would have have to be owned by me. If this option was not financially feasible, I would have each speaker give a 1-2 hour explanation on the topic via video stream and providing resources (books, articles, websites, etc) that detail the presentation they just gave. I would more than likely opt for this virtual option, because asking people to fly all over the world and drive to your event is a waste of time, money and resources that can be better spent toward the actual conference itself. All these hotel fees, gas, food, and travel time is a waste. No audience, no grand standing, no ham-bonin’, and definitely no moon shinin’. Stop showing your teeth!. This is “straight up” information that you can use. Raw and uncut.

There are three sections to my BLF and they are following:

1. Don’t Believe the Hype. Healing comes first.
Without the proper spiritual and mental healing, the next 3 parts of this post won’t mean much. This is about cleaning the mind, body and soul of all the toxic psychological and lifestyle impurities that divert us from greatness. So many of us talk about being powerful and independent but forget about having the proper dignity, candor, and humanity about themselves and the world around them. Not to mention being extremely humble about our accomplishments and fortune. In this section I will have a select group of doctors (some) who I believe have experience in helping folks remove the self-hatred, spiritually deadening and self-defeating attitude that undermines our future. They are the following:

2. Use History as Guide to Help Your Present Situation
One of the biggest issues I see in our communities (not that these issues are exclusive to our communities) is an unwillingness to immerse ourselves in the necessary information to help us address our present problems. I have seen this at all class levels, from the poorest of the poor to the the so-called “talented 10th”. There are so many lessons from past events that serve as a guide for the future, that we often have circular conversations on problems that have already been solved. In this section the participants will give us a brief history in the following areas. Each speaker will be given 2 hours, then provide the necessary resources to help break-down their 2 hour presentation. Now some of the individuals I’ve mentioned have passed on, so I would play certain films and have a panel discussion after to talk about the film:

3. Talk is Cheap. Action Speaks Louder than Getting on Your Soapbox and Doing Absolutely Nothing
One thing I realize about people, is they like to talk. It’s so easy, just open your trap and stuff starts coming out. To be honest, if we got charged a financial penalty every time we said erroneous, propagandized, or unusable information you’d probably hear a couple thousand people talk on television around the globe. Unfortunately, we have a sea of information that does not maximize our spiritual or human capital. Most of it is junk-food nonsense that gets regurgitated over an over again. Like the way a fly eats it’s food. It has to take in food, vomit on it, then slurp it back up. Do you really want to eat like that? Well chances are, you are. They have repackaged, dyed it, seasoned it with fragrances, and sold you something that appears useful, but is as efficient as Ford Model T racing in the Indianapolis 500.

This last segment of my fictional BLF is very important. These individuals will give you the tools. You’ll actually get the hammers, and wrenches to get to work. The first two segments focus on actionable data. This segment focuses on the tools that you need to take advantage of that data. Although this list could reach well over a thousand, I have specifically picked these individuals based on their willingness to be prudent and forthright in their approach to business, socio-economic circumstances, and human enlightenment. Here is the group that would master this segment:

Well folks, that’s it. The following 3 parts will delve into why I believe that each of these individuals offers something that we can benefit from while explaining why they are experts for each segment. The last part (part 5) will be my conclusion on where we are at and where we are going. Look out for the next parts over the next couple of weeks.

Let me be frank, understanding economics (at least U.B.E.P Understanding the Big Economic Picture) takes a lot of reading, patience and a hellava lot of googling archaic economic vocabulary that on the surface seems to make absolutely no sense. However, once you are able to get past the mysterious language of economics and understand the context of this vocabulary U.B.E.P becomes more concrete and eventually you’ll get the “Ahah” moment.

So why am I so relentless when it comes to economic stuff? Well for starters, the economic policies of government have very deep impacts on the amount of money we take home. From taxes, to interest rates, money in circulation, to how much our government spends on certain mandates and a slew of other things that would probably give me carpal tunnel syndrome in my fingers if I attempted to write out all the thousands of circumstances.

Below are 3 books which I believe are good starters or as I like to say “launch pads” into more sophisticated economic fields of thought. I believe there are several critical areas that each of these books cover. One is macro-economics (understanding how the sum decisions from individuals, firms, and governments impact trends, incentives and movements in the broader economic market), then personal economics (how your behavior fits into the larger scheme of the broader economic market), and how maximizing your personal utility is by far one of the most productive acts you can do to make your skills scarce, hence increasing your value in the broader economic market. These 3 books are as simple as it gets. No fancy language, no crazy complex charts, and lots of objectivity to give us an untarnished and balanced perspective needed to tackle many economic issues that challenge us on a day-to-day basis.

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan

What is there not to like about this book? So simple and concise minus the ideological hyperbole of free markets vs government. Naked Economics strips away all the fancy rhetoric and explains economics in a language that just about anyone can understand. Don’t be discouraged if you bump into something that sounds unfamiliar. A simple “googling” of the particular word or phrase will get you back on track and it’s extremely rare that you’ll run into this issue. The author wrote this book because he was tired of all the “ivory tower” economist explaining economics in such a drab and complex way. If these mainstream economist are the only ones who understand each other and not the general public, what is the point? This book will clear the fog of economic misunderstandings, not to mention it’s pretty darn funny.

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J Stanley and William D. Danko

One of the first books that really helped me understand the difference between saving money instead of looking like you have money was The Millionaire Next Door. This book is the ultimate “Anti-Joneses” personal finance doctrine. What’s extremely helpful is this book attempts at destroying a lot of the myths and urban legends that surround wealthy people. Want to know why most millionaires are NOT entertainers and athletes? How is this possible..uh read the book. You’ll be shocked to know how much the average millionaire spends on his/her watch. Want to know? Read the book. Or how about how much the average millionaire spends on a car? Want to know? Read the book. I promise you, you’ll walk away with a new understanding of why saving is so important, especially when it comes to your own personal utility. Too many people carry a fictitious narrative about what wealth is and who are the fortunate few who’ve been able to reach the status of wealthy. I must read for those who are interested in finding out where the seedlings of wealth begin and how those seedlings grow into wealthy roots.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

One of the most difficult concepts to understand is the dynamic “magic” that keeps the economy chugging along. In short, incentives and human capital. Incentive is the factor that motivates an individual to do a particular act. In the context of economics, it’s usually more money and quality of life. In some instances aspiring for more money might not be tied to just material objects, but could be tied to savings which breeds financial security or other philanthropic aspirations. Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is all about the circumstances, timing, and incentives that allowed select individuals to do extraordinary things in the economy, while explaining what happens when people master the art of aligning their personal incentives with their stock of human capital. This is the driving force behind our global economy.

Honorable Mention

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

Once you finished with the first 3 books above, you can’t move forward with understanding economics before you read Economics in One Lesson. Although written within a Libertarian vein (I say this as a compliment), it’s does a pretty good job of removing a lot of the “economic myths” that seem to never go away. The language is a bit heavier than the books above, but it’s still a good read. Although written almost 60 years ago, the content is as relevant today as it was then. A must read for those who want to rise above the cloud of economic confusion and fallacious punditry.

Now that the 2010 midterm elections are over, all you have to do is view the NYTimes word train from both parties to see the growing dividing line between Democrats and Republicans. 2010 midterm word train vs 2008 election word train. The fault line between red and blue states is deepening. More polarization of ideas equals more congressional gridlock while getting less and less done for the country.

My mood is disappointed. Not because the Republicans gained more seats in the House and flipped several seats in the Senate. Not because the Dems got a licking because there are no jobs. Not because because some of the most extreme ideologues are now representatives in the U.S. government. Not because the youth and other Black/Latino voters decided to stay home during this midterm election. Not because the Independents were “fair weather friends” of the 2008 election that ushered in Democrat control of the House/Senate including the Obama Administration and have now “turncoat” in less than half a presidential term. This is not a “sour grapes” reaction, this is a “reality grapes” reaction.

I’m disappointed because the American people, yet again, have an extremely short memory and seemed to have absolved the Republican party of decades of policy incompetence. They have never been the party of small government, free enterprise, fiscal discipline and just because they say it a thousand times, doesn’t mean that this is the answer or that they should institute these policies that they espouse. We don’t need small government, we need a smart and accountable government. We not only need a policy that encourages free enterprise, but a ethical free enterprise system. I’m not convinced that any party, Democrat or Republican or the fringe Republican movement known as the Tea Party, have the vision or ideas that will lead to the needed policy changes that will pull America out of this economic funk.

It’s not JUST spending cuts, it’s what you cut, it’s not JUST tax cuts, it’s balanced tax cuts that benefit the whole and not JUST the rich, it’s not JUST small business that matters, but the working poor that need help too. The single most crushing reality of this situation is ideological rhetoric has trumped informed reality. Fiscal fantasy over fiscal discipline. The American people nor our congressional representatives are prepared to make the radical changes to fix our problems. The rapid “zig zag” movements between parties is a testament to this fact. The achilles heel of this political process is we do not have an objective citizenry (regardless of the left or right), that has the information needed to understand the difference between sound policy decisions that benefit the whole vs corporatist ideologues posing as honest politicians who pretend that they are offering sound policy decisions.

Understanding the hows, whys, and whats of domestic and foreign policy is difficult. To be honest, I spend a considerable amount of time probing for facts and I STILL don’t have a crystal clear understanding of this stuff . It’s probably why most people prefer 30 second sound bites that move them into certain ideological political circles than doing the grudging hard work of researching and objectively interrogating certain policy ideas. It’s easy to follow your emotions, while not challenging the status quo. People are constantly asking “Where are the JOBS?”. For you to understand this, you have to go back several presidential administrations to understand how we got here. It didn’t start with the Bush Sr. Administration or Clinton Administration although they exacerbated the problem and it most certainly didn’t start with the GW Bush Administration although they exacerbated the problem. And to think the Obama Administration was a prerequisite to this current fiscal crisis is absolutely ludicrous. You have to research all the fiscal policy decisions starting around the Marquette Decision (1978) which completely deregulated the credit card industry. If the so-called “big bang” was the beginning of the universe, then the Marquette Decision was the big bang for our future fiscal problems. Our current “jobless recovery” is a host of bad policy decisions (including Fed policy) that was institutionalized for last 30 years.

Pointing a finger at any one political party is a waste of time. For what it’s worth, the one single book that has given me more food for thought on the nature of regulatory reform, fiscal policy decisions by the U.S. government, global monetization policy, Fed monetary policy and the roots of economic booms and busts including our current fiscal crisis is the book Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy by Raghuram Rajan. You can also read Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips which helps to understand these fiscal issues too. Start there and use this as a guide so you can understand why jobs have been obliterated from the U.S economy. In short, our extreme financialization of phantom assets/equity, erroneous reactions from the Fed have severely hampered the U.S. economy, not to mention financial illiteracy by the general public. It’s not going to take half of a presidential term to get out of this. We are 3-4 presidential terms away from getting even close to fixing the fundamentals of the U.S. economy. If that. Jobs can only come from the efficient use of resources in the economy. I repeat, there is no political party that can get us out of this. Once we realize that we are all in this together, irrespective of party affiliation, things will start falling into place.

Books

• Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy by Raghuram Rajan
• Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips