Spirit called Chavez, and now Fidel -- who will rise against the imperialism of the West now? Rest in power, Sir

Fidel Castro Ruz, Aug. 13, 1926 -- November 25, 2016:



No, I've never been to Cuba (but I do want to go).  However,  I've loved the spirit of Fidel Castro (and others like him) for as long as I've been woke.  I wonder -- would Miami Cubans have been happier if they'd lived under the Batista regime all these years instead of under Fidel?  Fidel said, "History will absolve me."  I agree with him.

I worry about the Changeling's supposed, opening-up toward Cuba (embargo totally done?  Nah!), because it seems to me, Cuba will go back to the mob-run, Sinatra days with capitalism running rampant under Orange-hair.  And then, there's Assata...

Related:
- Fidel Castro Ruz. His Legacy Will Live Forever
- Fidel Castro Defies US Imperialism Even in Death
- Fidel Castro: A Giant Has Passed
- Venceremos! The Legacy of Fidel Castro
- Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who defied U.S. for 50 years, has died
- Reaction to the death of Fidel Castro
- A Tyrant is Dead’ — Congress Reacts to the Death of Fidel Castro

The Changeling and Brother Ass-Coverer -- perfectly "selected" tools of the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy

Family, please stop being misled by the deus ex machina that is the Changeling.  He and his cohorts would have you believe that theirs are the mighty shoulders upon which we stand -- they are not, but hers are:

Assata Shakur in Her Own Words: Rare Recording of Activist Named to FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List




Angela Davis and Assata Shakur’s Lawyer Denounce FBI’s Adding of Exiled Activist to Terrorists List



Designated a domestic terrorist?  40 years later?  What the hell is this, some kind of dog whistle to distract from the very white faces of the FBI/CIA-followed (if not handled), Tsarnaev brothers?

Family, our culture doesn't stand a chance in these alleged United States if we don't stop living this life with our eyes wide shut.  We must all begin to think critically, act purposefully -- and become our OWN "agents of change!"

Related:
- An Open Letter to President Obama on the Matter of Assata Shakur
- Assata Shakur Is Not a Terrorist
- Gregory Kane: The rest of the Chesimard story
- Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters

A brief series interlude: Death in 3s, an uncomfortably close call and some belated "Ruminations"

In the last three months, death has knocked on my family's door three times.  I'm just now getting back home -- from yet another a funeral.

My aunt, the second of my grandmother's children (my mother was the first), died of a heart attack at 81 years old in mid-February.  I'd flown to Florida to take care of some tenant/maintenance issues at the house there, when I got the call.  I handled the headaches and changed my airline ticket and rental car drop-off location, and then drove the nine or so hours home so I could be there.

I flew back from there, and by the time I got back to Texas, I got a call shortly thereafter that her daughter's husband had died in March due to complications from sickle cell anemia (I'd planned to go to his funeral, but couldn't work it out financially). Then, the man who helped raise me and my brother after my parents divorced, passed away last week after some long-suffering and debilitating effects of Alzheimer's at 88 years old. His daughters and I were like sisters -- there was no way I wouldn't  show up for his "home-going."

I flew home Thursday morning.  Here are the stubs from my boarding passes for that leg of the trip:

   

Since my connecting flight was leaving from Terminal C, I went upstairs and rode the Link Train from Terminal A, through Terminal B, to Terminal C.  As I had an almost 2-hour layover, I decided to go to a cafe to get something to eat.  As I stood at the register, waiting to pay, the manager with a walkie-talkie came over to the young sister ringing me up and whispered something her ear.  She looked at me, eyes as big as saucers and said, "There's been a shooting in Terminal B!"  I said, "What?!  How?!  The only folks with guns in the terminals are the TSA people right?"  She said she didn't know who'd done the shooting, but she was going to find out.  She finished ringing me up and went in a back room with her manager.

I sat at a table close to the register, hoping to get some more details when she came back out, but she never did.  I just sat there nervously eating, eyes flitting around the cafe.  When I finished, I went to my gate and said to myself, "Let me hurry up and get the hay-ell on that damned plane!"

I got on, but we just sat on the tarmac, delayed because there were passengers who'd arrived at Terminal B but were stuck there.  They waited for a little while (the flight was fully booked) and then decided to go ahead and leave -- there were quite a few empty seats.

When I finally got home, I told my son what had just happened and we flicked through the local news channels to see if there was anything on about it.  There was nothing.  Later, I went online and found this, this and this.  And wonder of wonders -- the ass-hats from the NRA were all swooping in for a convention the following day! -- Houston airport shooting hot topic at NRA convention.  I swear, you just can't make this stuff up!

~#~

Ballot Initiative Could Alter District-Congress Relationship:

“When I hear a senator saying he’s of two minds, that’s progress as far as we’re concerned,” Norton said.

This, from DC's  Representative-in-name only, makes sense?  Please.  She (along with the rest of the Black, misleadership class) has been begging for DC statehood/autonomy forever -- to no avail (and the Changeling putting those, "Taxation without Representation" plates on his official vehicle, mattered not one iota either).  Am I the only fool that understands that the powers-that-be have no intention of ever letting that Home Rule thing happen (at least not until they've effectively "bleached" the District of its chocolate residents, that is)??  {smdh}

~#~#~

No, we all can't go to Cuba anytime we want, but what's the big deal about JoeC and Bey going?

(Photo courtesy of Naturally Moi)

I mean, it's not like the Changeling sent them on some kind of educational, or covert 007 mission or anything, right?  And certainly, there's no danger of them putting their heads (OR pennies) together with an Assata Shakur while they were there, kicking around ideas, plans or actions for Black Revolution 2.0, is there?  I sure don't think so (there's sure nothing revolutionary going on with Sasha Fierce over there ---> (quite the contrary actually).

If I thought this young sister was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say she did an excellent, undercover job of exposing Mr. & Mrs. "O" for the, "We'll step on, and over, alla y'all -- because we're better than you" selves that they are (but then again, Mrs. "O" did say she felt Bey was a great role model for her daughters.  Wait!  Isn't "Sasha" their younger daughter's name?).  But, unfortunately, I don't think that about the sister.  I'll leave it at that.

What Black folk should have their panties in a knot over, is this piece of work by Ole JoeC:

Culture icon and hip hop superstar Jay-Z has invested in Israeli wireless technology company, Duracell Powermat, and has signed on as the new face of the company. Duracell Powermat, a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Israel’s Powermat, was announced in September of 2011. Duracell, a brand of batteries manufactured by P&G, has also invested in Powermat.

If I thought he was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say he did an excellent job of setting himself up to take Israel's cash (down the road), so he could use it to help the many Africans-who-look-like-him, living in apartheid conditions -- in Israel.  But again, like his wife, I do not think that.  What I do think is, he's just another shabos goy -- just like Russell Simmons (Sorry, you gotta read all the way to the end for the reference).

UPDATE:
A few things on this particular "rumination" -- First, Brother Amenta and I shared this convo on another post recently:

Amenta -- "When Jay Z, easily got the ok to go to Cuba I wondered who in his camp is an agent."
Me -- You're the second person I've read that said that! As I said here, I doubt THEY had a damned 007 clue, but y'all could be right, they could have been the Changeling's "useful idiots!"

A week later, I read Obama Uses JayZ to Trap Assata Shakur, posted over at Freedom Rider (follow the Dhoruba bin Wahad link there to read the entire interview). It included this sentence:   Jay-Z’s delegation included a State-Department “reliable” personage who transmitted the Obama’s administration’s position.  My snark about them not having "a damned 007 clue" was intended, and stands -- as does my "useful idiots" comment.

Second, staying on the subject of Assata Shakur, Sis. Carolyn over at Perspectives... (see sidebar) shared this link with me recently: Statement by the National Network on Cuba on the placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.  A good read, and if you're into those "games people play" with other people's lives, a good move!

Third, according to the Naturally Moi link in Sasha's photo up there on the right, "...the weird outfit is supposed to be an owl."

No folks, THIS is an owl (guess I'm just not visionary enough to connect big green eyes, with big brown ones):

(Photo courtesy of Graham McGeorge, from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

End of update

~#~#~#~

What can I say about Amira Hass other than I certainly appreciate the alliance of values she and Sister Cynthia McKinney hold.  Mincing no words here, she mirrors what having "stones" is about (pun intended):

In the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, stones have played a central role. The stone was the symbol of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993), as children as young as 8 years old rained their projectiles down on the occupying Israeli army. Soldiers often responded with live ammunition, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians, about 200 of them children. Youths with stones confronting soldiers with Galils and M-16s: Palestinian children took center stage as David against the Israeli Goliath. The image pricked the conscience of many Israelis, and citizens and governments around the world, and ultimately helped force Israeli leaders, including the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to the negotiating table. (The Oslo agreement they forged with Palestinian negotiators proved to be disastrous; nevertheless, there was a palpable sense during the first intifada that the stone would lead to Palestinian liberation.)

Today, the stone remains a part of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation, which is more entrenched than ever. And while growing numbers of Palestinians advocate nonviolent resistance as the most promising path to a just peace, others strongly defend the right of Palestinians to throw stones as a legitimate act of political resistance against an illegal 47-year military occupation. One of them is an Israeli journalist.

“Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule,” wrote Amira Hass in an April 3 article in the newspaper Haaretz. “Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.”...

...In her piece, Hass underscored the “right” and “duty” of Palestinians to resist the occupation in the face of “shooting, torture, land theft, restrictions on movement, and the unequal distribution of water sources.” The Israeli journalist, who unlike nearly every Western correspondent, lives in the occupied West Bank, offered this resistance advice:

“It would make sense for Palestinian schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: ... how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier; how to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”

Not least of these strategies, Hass asserted in the article that has drawn so much heat, is hurling rocks at soldiers: “Stone-throwing is the adjective attached to the subject of ‘We’ve had enough of you, occupiers.’ ” (emphasis mine)

~#~#~#~#~

Pelosi: Members are lined up to sign Paycheck Fairness Act (tried to embed but not allowed).  That damned Nancy Pelosi is somethin' else ain't she?

I got this email from when I was a Democrat and subscribed to the DCCC emails (never cancelled it, I always like being abreast of e'erybody's lies).  And this one would have been too funny for how ignorant they believe most folk are to their tactics of blaming Rethuglicans for obstructing everything, if not for their hubris and my long memory (we don't all have it twisted).  Just like the Democrats held the majority in both the House and the Senate when Shrub & Co. lied us into the Iraq war, they also lied when they engineered the bait-and-switch in favor of Ledbetter versus the real Paycheck Fairness Act:

April 9, 2013

Friends --

As the first woman Speaker of the House, I know a thing or two about challenging the status quo. I'm really proud of that, and I'm proud of all the women who have made our country strong.

But the truth is, we're still a long way from fairness and equality in the workplace -- women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Republican obstructionists continue to block progress on paycheck fairness -- tell them to stop acting on the wrong side of history:

Stand with me and women across the country and help us get to 100,000 strong for paycheck fairness >>

Equal work deserves equal pay -- and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act is the next step in the fight for equal pay.

This bill won’t see the light of day unless we hold House Republicans’ feet to the fire. Tell House Republicans it’s time to finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act:

http://dccc.org/Equal-Pay

Thanks,

Nancy Pelosi

Am I the only one that remembers this dog & pony show, staged to make all you female 'mericans, think the Changeling had immediately done a damned thing about equal pay for women shortly after he burst on the scene?



Or when Pelosi stepped up on the floor in the first week of the 111th Congress, and told the lie again (even though the words on the bottom of the screen tell exactly what Lebetter was really about?



Rosa DeLauro would have done better on her damned own, rather than allowing the Changeling and Pelosi to manipulate a bill she'd worked on so hard, for so a long.

~#~#~#~#~#~

Also, got this petiton from Avaaz and thought about my telling Amenta last year, "Lawd ha' mercy! I knew my people had it right when they were growing their own food and raising their own chickens and hogs out in the country!": 

Dear Avaazers,

It’s unbelievable, but Monsanto and Co. are at it again. These profit-hungry biotech companies have found a way to exclusively ‘own’ something that freely belongs to us all -- our food! They’re trying to patent away our everyday vegetables and fruits like cucumber, broccoli and melons, forcing growers to pay them and risk being sued if they don’t.

But we can stop them from buying up Mother Earth. Companies like Monsanto have found loopholes in European law to get away with this, so we just need to close them shut before they set a dangerous global precedent. And to do that, we need key countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands -- where opposition is already growing -- to call for a vote to stop Monsanto’s plans. The Avaaz community has shifted governments before, and we can do it again.

Many farmers and politicians are already against this -- we just need to bring in people power to pressure these countries to keep Monsanto’s hands off our food. Sign now and share with everyone to help build the biggest food defense call ever:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

Once a patent exists in one country, trade agreements and negotiations often push other countries to honour it as well. That's why these food patents change everything about how our food chain works: for thousands of years, farmers could choose which seeds they’d use without worrying about getting sued for violating intellectual property rights. But now, companies launch expensive legal campaigns to buy patents on conventional plants and force farmers to pay exorbitant royalty fees. Monsanto and Co. claim that patents drive innovation -- but in fact they create a corporate monopoly of our food.

But luckily, the European Patent Office is controlled by 38 member states who, with one vote, can end dangerous patents on food that is bred using conventional methods. Even the European Parliament has issued a statement objecting to these kinds of destructive patents. Now, a massive wave of public outcry could push them to ban the patenting of our everyday food for good.

The situation is dire already -- Monsanto alone owns 36% of all tomato, 32% of sweet pepper and 49% of cauliflower varieties registered in the EU. With a simple regulatory change, we could protect our food, our farmers and our planet from corporate control -- and it's up to us to make it happen:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

The Avaaz community has never been afraid to stand up to corporate capture of our institutions, from pushing back the Rupert Murdoch mafia, to helping ensure that telecoms keep their hands off our Internet. Now it’s time to defend our food supply from this corporate takeover.

With hope and determination,

Jeremy, Michelle, Oli, Dalia, Pascal, Ricken, Diego and the whole Avaaz team

I tell you!  Wa-a-a-y too many folk trying to control the damned world by hook or by crook -- and equally, wa-a-a-y too many of us not giving a shit about it! {smdh}

Related:
- Carnell Moore, Houston Airport Shooter, Left 'Monster Within Me' Suicide Note
- Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters
- On Cuba Trip, Jay-Z Responds To Washington With Verse
- Why Nancy Pelosi Is Calling On Her Colleagues To Force A Fair Pay Vote
- Paycheck Fairness, Ledbetter and the "Walmart Women"
- Soybean Farmer Takes Monsanto to Supreme Court

Congressional Black Caucus got juice??? - Ah, No...

Lawd have mercy!  NOW the Congressional Black Caucus is tryin' to flex?

"But Waters says the CBC’s point was a larger one — a statement that the group would “use our strength and our influence to better represent our communities.” (emphasis mine).

What the hell??  Strength and influence??  Please.

I read Frustrated Congressional Black Caucus plays hardball with White House and  I'm sorry, it's just so chock full of what my play-sister-blogger-friend, Cinie has so entertainingly described in -"What, You Thought He Was Kidding?" - that I need to apologize right now for how much I'm getting ready to quote this Politico piece.

"The long-simmering family feud between the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African-American president...The 43-member caucus — which included Illinois Sen. Barack Obama from 2004 to 2008 — has chafed against President Obama and his top aides since the Inauguration, complaining that the White House takes it for granted and plays favorites with conservative Blue Dog Democrats." (emphasis mine)

What "family feud? "The Black family feud? Some white folk tickle me.

Anywa-y-y-y.  The CBC, in full, mask-wearing-mode, apparently thought their Undercover Brotha was going to reward them like he did all those high-dollar donors in exchange for them selling out Hillary throwing all their "strength and influence" behind him.  First of all, God don't like ugly.  Second of all, weren't they studying him while he was obviously studying them for four damn years?  I can see why he's taking them for granted - they made it too easy.

"The bill passed easily..." (emphasis mine)

Guess that shoots that "strength and influence" thing to hell.

"...but Waters suggested the CBC’s 43 members could vote with the GOP to scuttle a variety of Democratic bills if Obama and Emanuel don’t address what she thinks is a lack of understanding of the CBC’s wide-ranging goals of reducing urban unemployment, home foreclosures and bank failures." (emphasis mine)

Now, how much sense does this make?  What if some of those Democratic bills are worth voting for?  They're threatening to vote with the GOP to do what?  Prove a point?  Get revenge?  What about their constituents who might  possibly benefit (you never know!) from the passage of some of those bills?

Wide-ranging goals?  Maxine Waters has been in Congress for what - 18, 19 years?  Can any of you Compton people tell me how many of those "wide-ranging goals"  have been met?  The state's supposedly broke, the 'hood is still the hood, police officers are still, in 2009, shooting young, unarmed, belly-down Black men on train platforms. 

How about some of you Brooklyn or Bronx people, or Chicago people, or DC people, or some non-PG County Maryland people?  How 'bout some of you Philly people, or Overtown, FL people, or Dillon, SC people?  Anybody?  Anything?  Guess"wide-ranging" also means very long-ranging too.

And if I were Rep. Waters, I'd  try to tip-toe around mentioning anything to do with bank failures - at least until that pesky little investigation is completed anyway.

“I think that it is important for us to educate those people around [Obama],” Waters told reporters. “We’ve got to get his people educated and moving. We have not brought these issues to him personally — it is important first to educate those people around him so they understand.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), who recently accused Obama of bowing down to the GOP on health care reform, was more pointed, shouting “Yes!” when asked if he was disappointed with Obama’s level of attentiveness to African-Americans’ needs.

He added that he had an extensive list of issues with the president — a list he said was too long to disgorge in a hallway conversation with a reporter." (emphasis mine)

What the hell - again?!  We'll talk about our issues and our problems with him - TO SOMEBODY ELSE - NOT DIRECTLY TO HIM?  Jeezus H. Christ!  What is this kindergarten?  Yeah I know, that's not "how it's done" in Washington.  Main reason I'd never be a politician.

“There are those who choose not to speak about African-Americans or the working class,” Waters said. (emphasis mine)

Guess that one was meant for HIM.

"And many felt Obama waited too long — nearly two months into his term — to invite them to their first White House meeting." (emphasis mine)

This is too funny!  Their feelings are hurt?  Why should he buy the cow, when he got the milk for free??

"CBC members have long said they would rather deal with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, but have been forced to negotiate with Emanuel, Obama’s point man in the House." (emphasis mine)

Jesus please take the wheel! Forced?  Do they really believe Valerie Jarrett wants to deal with them??  She's the Changeling's second (first?) brain!  And I'm not even going to go into the whole Blue Vein Society thing that is still very much alive in this country today.

According to Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, “We have not been informed of the reasoning behind their decision not to vote on the bill, but we continue to think it is important to move financial reform forward to prevent future crises from damaging our economy and disrupting the lives of millions of Americans, including African-Americans.” (emphasis mine)

More of that "rising tide lifts all boats" bullshit.

Back in April, I read this on dcexaminer.com - "Useful Idiots Of The Congressional Black Caucus" - about six members of the CBC visiting Cuba.  My immediate response to the headline was visceral (and maybe a tad schizophrenic given the content of the piece), but all I could say was:

"Damn, that's crass!"

I saved the link among my many drafts though, mentally filing it away under, "Get back to this shit when that "Mississippi Burning" feeling's under better control."  I'm a link hoarder, what can I say.

The link no longer exists at the site (maybe all those announced cutbacks this week has something to do with it) however, the Examiner's piece originally  linked to Mona Charen's, April 9th National Review piece entitled,  "Useful Idiots Caucus - Genuinely Castrophilic.  More a "Mississippi Simmering" title.

But since most of what I know about Cuba, I first learned under the auspices of the military - AND, because I get so tired of white folk always being one minority or other's mouthpieces, I went digging for a Cuban perspective.  I found this interesting post by Anatasio Blanco at Babalú Blog:  The Bigotry of the Congressional Black Caucus.

And this is where the schizophrenia comes in for me.

On the one hand, I've always felt that - after having gone through all the horrors of Jim Crow, culminating in a real change movement which finally made it possible to get more of our "kinfolk" (not "skinfolk" like the Changeling) elected to Congress - said elected Congress persons deserved the same public respect as their white counterparts.  So the "idiots" thing offended me.

That being said however, a lot of us, upon becoming "successful," (as defined by the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy), are so busy doing what the WSCP says is required to keep on being successful, any semblance of critical thinking just flies straight out the window.  I can't lie, in my formerly, totally colonialized state of mind - that was me too.  But after awhile, I began to feel more stupid than successful,  because that "rising tide wasn't lifting all boats" - even with more of our "kinfolk" in office. 

And over the more than 20 years of working on de-colonializing this mind, I've realized it was never designed to lift everybody's boat - we have to make it.  Now, I've still got plenty of work to do, but at least I'm working on it.  Maybe the CBC should consider at least embarking on such a journey if they want to be taken seriously - by anyone.

I'm sure Reps. Rush and Cleaver - having been a part of that "real movement" in their early days - saw praising Castro on that visit as some kind of show of  "brotherhood in resistance" or something.  Apparently they didn't realize that was then, and this is now - for the three of them.  And then-n-n, after they went and made all those school-girl crush sounding proclamations, they come back home and now say something altogether different, bringing the wrath of the Cuban government down on their heads just this week - Cuba blasts US black leaders for charges of racism.  Seems the CBC is "useful" to everybody but Black folk.

Last year around this time, brotherkomrade, a former commenter here, suggested I do some reading on Assata Shakur.  I did, and soon after, started another draft that I didn't finish.  So, I thought I'd just move a little of it here since we're talking about Cuba. 

In this open letter written in 2005 - “My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th-century escaped slave" - she tells her side of what happened that landed her in Cuba as a political exile.  If you've not read it, please do.  If you don't feel like it, watch the two videos below.  And once you have, tell me if you think she met with any of those CBC members when they met with Fidel.  Like I said, I'm still "working on it" - but I have to believe she did not.

In her own words...