Notes From a Native Son: This is the Year When Our Long-term Future Will be Decided

Hal Austin

Introduction:
As we enter the dawn of a new year, all attention will be focused on the coming general election and, for some of us, the paucity of ideas battling for votes from a badly informed electorate. As things stand, it is largely a competition between tweedledee and tweedledum, although the recent injection of a broad, if under-articulated, idea of privatisation has raised its head.

However, even this glimpse of an ideological difference has been crowded out by the yahboo background noise of party humbug, rather than a rational discussion of the notion that firms owned by the private sector are in themselves inherently better managed and more efficient than those held by the public sector or social enterprises. Such closed mindedness also acts to shutdown debate, the arguments become irrelevant, as by definition people are either for or against the idea under discussion.

Now, as I have said here before, the world is entering a new phase in which the old economic assumptions are now redundant and the new global economic (and military) power will be centred in the early part of the 21st century in Asia and to some extent, Latin America. Therefore to understand what is taking place and the possible outcomes, one needs to read the runes carefully.  For a little island state, proud of its independence, careful observation is more important now than at any point in our history.

Sandy Hook Slaughter Remembered, Especially 20 INNOCENT Children

Submitted by Hamilton Hill

Community Remembers Sandy Hook School Victims – photo image ABCNews

Every year at this time we who share space this side of the equator find ourselves not only dreaming of, but wishing for a white Christmas. Though not a dream and certainly not a wish, a white Christmas is ours this year. Twenty tiny white caskets tell us so. Twenty tiny white caskets tell the story of a people too blind to see. Too blind to see that the purse strings of lobbyists make puppets of politicians, who in turn make empty promises to the people they claim to serve. When four hands and two sick minds sent six young souls to eternity, that was my Barbados, and it tugged at my heart strings. Sandy Hook has ripped that very heart out.

Like all kids that age they believed us when we told them that Santa Claus comes down the chimney. In childish anticipation they awaited the arrival of Kris Kringle. Instead Jason Krueger came calling at their front door. Cut down even before they had started to grow, dead already even though they had just begun to live. All in the name of the right to carry. We talk about rights but when will we talk about responsibility? Yes the second amendment afforded Mrs.Lanza the right to have four guns but how responsible could she have been to have them accessible to a son with a myriad of psychological challenges? As tempted as I am to speak to her demise let me not. Let me pose this question. Why is there a need for any civilian to own an assault weapon? Why is it legal for them to do so?

Notes From a Native Son: Tell the Yanks to Back off our Policymaking

Hal Austin

Introduction:
American diplomats in Barbados have recently been pushing their snouts in the trough of Barbadian domestic public policy, against all conventions and accepted good manners, using their money as a Trojan horse. But this unwarranted intervention in our local domestic policymaking is not surprising; as America loses its influence in the world, it will intervene, more and more, in regional matters – the re-treading of Monroe-ism.

Part of the post-independence Barbadian political narrative is the myth that we are now masters in our own home; but, in reality, it is as much a self-deceiving nonsense as that we control our economy. However, although the language might have tempered itself in to what the Harvard sociologist Lawrence D. Bobo calls laissez faire racism, the reality is that the social outcomes of the new arrangement (that post-independence settlement which I have mentioned previously) still means that those left in the old communities, unable to escape to the Heights and Terraces, are the ones who pay the heavy social price. In a society shaped by American social biases, which is predicated on a winner/loser paradigm, there is an assumption that there must always be people at the bottom. But this is not a natural order of things; we know this from other societies, such as Scandinavia, and from the animal kingdom, that opportunities can be spread right across society.

The Uselessness of Elections for the 99 Percent Everywhere

Submitted by Pachamama

Prime Minister Stuart and President Obama about to face the electorate

Bajans can’t wait to wade into the election euphoria now in its Christmas season in the United States and elsewhere. Not all Bajans though, for there are some of us who, in fact about 50% of us, have consistently NOT voted for either one of the two dominate parties in what are generally called western democracies. But this factoid has never alarmed the protectors of these pernicious political duopolies. We are told that the un-voted don’t count. Moreover, with the possible exception of Australia and a few other countries, where there are civil fines for choosing not to exercise a so-called democratic right, most people everywhere have acted with their feet and the determination that elections are merely window dressing to obscure the operational requirements of fascism as the dominate and underlying system of governance.

The American election system from at least the Reconstruction period has been synonymous with high-tech fraud. It is American which gave us the lexicon for election fraud whether to illegally overthrow a government or to maintain a compliant regime – at home or abroad. They gave us words such as ‘gerrymandering’, ‘redistricting’ and ‘robocalling’. A documentarian has remarked that when the American fossil is dug up our descendants will be left to wonder why so many people were running around talking about democracy when in fact few people benefited from the actions of party political actors operating across epochs. Strictly speaking the United States of America is not even a democracy. But you can’t tell that to the masses of the people who are enthralled by the religiously emotional diatribes of leading Democrats and Republicans. The political science literature tends to consider the American political system as a poliocracy. But very few would be aware of this. And even if they were, would it make a difference? Yet, for over a century the marketing of ‘democracy’ (as a political system) has intentionally misled several generations to view the Anglo-American political constructions as worthy of emulation.

A Grassroots Comparison of the Upcoming Elections In USA and Barbados: Facts Versus Fiction

Submitted by Austin

Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart (l) President Barack Obama

In the U.S today:

The Republican Party continues to live in there owe “bubble” detached from the many daily realities and struggles of everyday Americans. They are covertly using the fear of a blackbrownasian planet to get poor middle class republicans to fight for rich republicans, against their own middle class self interest which is very interesting in itself.

The Republican Party in the U.S remains focused on resisting President Obama at each step of the way whether it helps struggling American families or not.  They are also very focused on distorting the FACTS and TRUTH about President’s Obama accomplishments.  The attacks on President Obama started from day one as he attempted to pull the U.S economy back from the brink of economic ruin due to the poor financial and regulatory oversight of Wall Street a problem created by his predecessor President Bush, not to mention the (2) wars Bush got the U.S into.

Despite of the FACTS and the TRUTH of Obama’s accomplishments, we get to hear the republican talking heads in the media continue to spread pure extra strength propaganda about Obama, and it gets worst every day.  Obama while not perfect in many areas “HAS” accomplished much for the U.S, let’s just list a few of his Economic”accomplishments in the U.S. (visit http://obamaachievements.org/list to see full list )

A Stone of HOPE or a Mountain of DESPAIR: Will the Unveiling of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Memorial Statue in Washington DC Really Change Anything – Or is America Doomed By the Scars of Her Past?

Submitted by Terence Blackett

Running through the dark center of American history there is a vivid red thread of tragedy… – Bruce Catton

In August 1955, a [14] year old Black boy whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till, a teen from Chicago, didn’t understand that he had broken the unwritten laws of the Jim Crow South until three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. Although his killers were arrested and charged with murder, they were both acquitted quickly by an all-white, all-male jury. Shortly afterwards, the defendants sold their story, including a detailed account of how they murdered Till, to a journalist. The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till’s death was the spark that helped mobilize the Civil Rights Movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the Montgomery bus boycott began… (Cited from: – DEATH OF INNOCENCE. The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America” written by Mamie Till – Mobley & Christopher Benson – published by Random House Publishing Group, NY, © 2003).

History was to repeat itself but this time on a cool spring evening, April 4^th 1968 @ 6:01 PM, a “lone wolf” assassin, alleged and purported to be James Earl Ray took aim and fired a single shot which rang out across the balcony of the room of where Dr. Martin Luther King was standing at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. Laying sprawled and splattered out on the balcony’s floor, covered in a pool of blood splutter and with a gaping wound covering a large portion of his jaw and neck was this great man who had spent [13] years of his life dedicated to non-violent protest, peaceful resistance and orderly civil disobedience – now lay murdered from a sniper’s bullet.

What was remarkable is that adjacent to the rooming house in which James Earl Ray was apparently staying, was the fire station where police officers were stationed keeping Dr. King under constant surveillance using papered-over windows with peepholes cut out as the agents watched while Martin Luther King was shot.

Lifting The Veil – The Failure Of Capitalist Democracy

The video, should you hit play, exposes the scam of the supposed two party  system in the USA and shows that, whether the Democratic or Republican party holds power, protecting (or better yet, increasing) the profits of the corporate bankster and gangster class to the detriment of the working class is always the first priority of the USA’s political establishment.

INFLATION NATION, a layman’s guide to America’s coming monetary destruction – and how to survive it

Reproduced from Whistle Blower on request from Zoe

 

The signs are everywhere: In the midst of a brutal recession, with Americans already burdened by sky-high unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies, shoppers are noticing disturbingly higher food prices. Indeed, a survey of Wal-Mart stores analyzing price movements in 86 products widely used by Americans reveals price inflation to be twice the government’s “official” rate.

But that’s just for starters. Indeed, much of the current price inflation in commodities, including food – like wheat up 50 percent and cotton up a staggering 100 percent over last year, not to mention oil, beef, soybeans, coffee, cocoa and more, all way up – is due largely to international factors out of our control: flooding in Pakistan decimating cotton crops, the diversion of corn for ethanol driving up corn prices, China’s exponentially growing consumption rates, and so on.

But when it comes to explaining precious metals prices – gold and silver are up five-fold over the last decade – all eyes turn to government and its maniacal, indeed incomprehensible level of deficit spending, borrowing, money creation and regulation, all leading inexorably to the debasement of the U.S. dollar. This has led many, not just in the U.S. but worldwide, to seek refuge and stability in the time-honored monetary metals.

The Politics Of “Never Again”: The White Backlash In Post-Racial “OBAMA’S America” – How the Evils Of Structural And Institutional Racism Is At The Foundations of Modern Socio-Geopolitics

Submitted by Terence Blackett

“If man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King’s Speech in Detroit 23^rd June 1963

 

On June 14^th, 2001, George W. Bush in what was meant to be a snide remark to Swedish PM Goran Perrson (though unaware of television cameras still rolling) facetiously opined – “It’s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency.”

Since Bush’s disastrous two-term tenure as president – is anyone really laughing? Where are the LOL’s folks? What did George Bush and his Religious Rights friends do to the American moral landscape – touting the virtues of democracy to the known world while at the same time, living a hypocritical lie immersed in the politics of greed, corruption and destabilization?

As I sat to write this article having imbibed and digested Deepak Chopra’s book – “The Third Jesus”: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, I became even more conscious of how the religious politics and ruminations in American society at this present moment raise sinister challenges which few are truly aware of. Religious voices are muttering everywhere but none of them seem to be making any real sense – especially within the establishment of the Religious Right.

USA Pushing Legislation To Censor The Internet

If one were to be asked who would want to regulate the Internet, China, Iran or USA, China would be on the tip of the tongue for sure. Recently President Obama in the wake of the China/Google incident called for countries to stop* censoring the Internet. Read the latest:

A new bill being debated this week would have the Attorney General create an Internet blacklist of sites that US Internet providers would be required to block –

Read more about the bill: COICA Fact Sheet

 

Last month Google was convicted of defaming a French computer user after the Internet technology giant linked his name to the word “rapist” in automatic web searches. Usually a cool feature only this time Google got it wrong. Even if Google wins on appeal what is evident is that big foot moves are taking place to regulate the Internet.

BU has always shown a keen interest in matters to do with how the Internet is being regulated. Bear in mind freedom of speech which is facilitated by BU is riding a changing tide.

Sign the Petition List!

China Takes The #2 Spot From Japan, USA Next – What Are The Implications For Barbados In The Ongoing Sino-Western ‘War’?

Submitted by People’s Democratic Congress (PDC)

A migrant worker picks up a bottle of water during a break from his work near a construction site at Beijing's Central Business District Monday, Aug. 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

While many people on here on BU blog on much trivia and whilst many citizens in Barbados itself talk and engage in much foolishness and crap, and are systematically being sidetracked by many Eurocentric Westernized into doing so, we in the PDC, and we suppose some others too in Barbados, are presently  learning that the Chinese have just overtaken the Japanese as the world’s second biggest economy in terms of GDP, and are on course, according to a few talking heads in this western hemisphere,  to overtake the  Americans – who are presently the world’s biggest economy – in the next 3 0r so decades ( See Link)

However, the fact that the Chinese were at some points in the past bound to overtake the Japanese eventually, would have been seen from the time of their (the Chinese’s) implementation of particular state capitalist industrialist  ideologies, principles and programs during the time in which such statist trends and events were categorized under the rubric as The Great Leap Forward – in the post World War II era under the Late Great Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976);  from the time they would have implemented market capitalist imperialist industrialist ideologies, principles and programs that fell within the embrace of the introduction of greater Western market style reforms to a Chinese economy that hitherto was centrally planned,  in 1978 under the paramount leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1904 – 1997) – and which were thus seen to be centered around the building on the positives that had been ushered in in the period of the Great Leap Forward – which though too had its own fundamental problems; and from the time they would have executed more of the same capitalist freemarket ideologies, principles and programs that would have inevitably led to profound increases in the strong holds that both Chinese and Western Capitalism have had on the Chinese economy, since the emergence of Jiang Zemin ( 1926 – ) as the paramount leader of China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests crackdown in 1989, and right up to this juncture with the present paramount Chinese leader Hu Jintao (1942 –).

Thompson, Obama And The Dealing Of Bad Hands

Hartley Henry - DLP Political Strategist

Dear Madame Secretary of State, welcome to my beautiful island home. Please convey to your distinguished President our very best wishes for continued good health, wisdom and success in his endeavors to improve the lot of the American people.

In Barbados we have a saying that “So and So like they kill a priest”. What this essentially means is that the person appears to be on the receiving end of a strain of bad luck; brought on as recompense for an act most dastardly. In most instances, however, as is the case with President Obama, the streak of misfortune is not so easily explained and is often times surmised as continuously “pulling a bad hand”.

How else, Madam Secretary, could one explain misfortunes, one after the other, in Mr. Obama’s mere 18 month presidency? History shows that a succession of crises can sink confidence in a leader. Yet, somewhat reassuringly, President Obama prevails. It’s as if he is being put through the hottest fires, to prove his true metal.

Matt Bai, writing in the New York Times of Sunday, June 6^th, commented that President Obama is that rare politician who is also a gifted writer, and that he understands the power of a good metaphor. Bai asserts that Obama could therefore appreciate the poetic significance of that cloud of oil, ubiquitous on cable television all last week, spewing endlessly from a 5, 000-foot-deep puncture in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dear President Obama

Hartley Henry - DLP Political Strategist

Congratulations on the passage of the Health Reform Bill. I am impressed and truly inspired by your vision, conviction and determination!

Many political observers in Barbados have come to compare and twin the politics of Washington to that of Barbados. They liken the Democrats in Washington to the governing Democratic Labour Party and the Republicans on Capitol Hill to the current leadership of the Barbados Labour Party.

Sir, in relation to your recent experience with the health care issue, we have an almost identical scenario existing here in Barbados, where absolutely nothing the government does is supported by the opposition.

I can well understand your frustration at having to fight so hard to effect positive and meaningful change. But that, I suppose, is the nature of politics in 2010. The Health Reform Bill, as I understand it, would bring both immediate as well as long term benefits to millions of Americans.

Straight off the bat, health insurers would be required to let young people stay on their parents’ policy up to their 27^th birthday. Also, insurers would be barred from denying coverage to kids with pre-existing health conditions, and tax credits, to the tune of 35 percent of premiums, would start to flow to businesses with fewer than 50 employees to enable them to take out and maintain policies.