Cloaking Devices

Of late in our society in the post industrial era of America there is a hyper focus and concern over the widespread use of communication devices and the specter of surveillance that violates our personal privacy.

The space where privacy operates is being violated by the silent invasion of communication survelliance.Our gadgets are now gateways and windows of entry for strangers who have access without the paying the  price of admission .

 Many view the evolution of communication technologies as a real threat to our indivual freedom of expression which is altered by the  interference of  uninvited forces in both the private and public sector.

The unwarranted intrusion of another without consent or permission assaults the very essence of the sancity of an person's ownership of space in the world. There can be no privacy when others are presence without consent or permission.

Communication Survelliance has a place in the society but only when society agrees to the price of admission.

Gunless=The Art Of Disarmament in the Hood

Recently I attended a rally in the state capitol of Maryland to support legislation for stricter gun control and the end of the death penalty as well in the state of Maryland. Despite the chill in the air of Annapolis that day there was a lot of energy and politics visually it was eye opening from my view but not a surprise in retrospect to observe up close and personal the racial demographics of the protestors both pro and con.

The supporters of gun control were diverse in hue and gender while the supporters against gun control was almost 100% white males. This raw visual has now informed me to pen this commentary.

Recent media accounts have reported and documented that during the Obama presidency unlike any other modern day presidency the gun sales in our nation have been brisk with sales of guns in excess of 65,000,000. The overwhelming purchasers of these guns have been white males. The proliferation of guns in our society has been stunning and staggering . America even before the election of it's first person of color was and remains the number #1 Arms Merchant on the planet. Our arms industry is the greatest manufacturer in the world when it comes to armaments and weapons of destruction. The gun lobbies from the NRA to those who shill to supply the Defense Department is unparallel. There is right now in the country a frenzy surrounding guns it stings the air with fear and in many venues a giddy aroma.

America is where democracy is exported often at the barrel of a gun. Our  Department of Defense budget comes close to a trillion dollars a year every year. Our society is a culture where violence is worshipped and exported . In America the gun is worshipped as a sacred artifact. The fervor for guns is beyond any sense of reason and borders on insanity. Gun violence not only destroys lives but the health costs of gun violence is in the billions. The reality of suicides and gun mishaps in the homes of families is tragic and senseless.

It is critical that as a nation and culture we must take a life altering posture and position towards the possession and ownership of guns especially in communities of color where the carnage of guns is creating a killing fields. Many have even uttered the words that in Black venues folks are engaged in a self destructive community inflicted ethic cleansing . Into this gun abyss the staff of PLANE IDEAS has endorsed the total confiscation of all guns. We support government mandated gun confiscation ASAP.

For Black folks in many venues across the country we need to have a calibrated examination and analysis of gun confiscation. What is more lethal for the Black community and progressives, gun ownership where the majority of guns are owned by the majority population( read Whites) or the absence of all gun ownership even guns owned by Blacks and progressives.

We have to ask as a change agents which is safer and more secure for us as a people and a community. Clearly the loss of life at the hand of guns owned by the majority against Blacks and progressives is greater than the loss of life by Blacks against Blacks. Gun confiscation means a longer mortality and morbidity in the face of gun violence. Our communities are more secure and safe from gun violence with the absence of guns than the ownership and possession of guns in our homes and in the community .

Arguments that if Blacks give up guns it makes them vulnerable to the majority is still not as lethal or dangerous than guns overwhelmingly owned by whites.

We are safer as a community when NO ONE OWNS A GUN!. Gun Confiscation saves lives in both normal and crisis situations in our country even if the majority population wants to start a race riot without guns they cannot kill in with the same degree and scope even in a martial law race war scenario. Millions of whites with no guns is safer than the converse.

It is critical that the Black Community in America come to the reality that the proliferation of gun sales simply is not in our best interest and puts all of us at risk! Even the raw notion of the government taking away and confiscating all guns is still a more secure and safer proposition than the presence of millions of guns in a troubled and uncertain post industrial racial era.

Guns and people kill the absence of people with guns is less killing. It is that simple. Gun Confiscation is the best practice and policy in the new era for the living and sanctity of life in America especially for Blacks and progressives.

Gunless is the way to go. Disarmament Now!!

CPAC : My Story

I attended CPAC with an agenda to discover and engaged people on why conservatives have failed in their outreach efforts to attract Black Americans to the GOP, Tea Party and the Libertarian parties. My premise is straight forward I opine that wherever Black folks are in play and at risk we should be there to protect and advocate for our interests/agenda. I also opine that our presence and interaction with others will augment and enhance outcomes which serve the collective themes and interests of all parties. While I was circulating my flyer( A press release offering my services to assist in reaching out to Black Voters) I encountered some hostile and angry CPAC people. I did not have a camera crew . I was a lone Black man on a mission:-) My offer of help remains on the table.

New Era of Conservatism(c) = The Black Electorate

The New Era for Conservatism is now this is a great opportunity for the Black Electorate and the GOP. The Obama Era will come to an end and where will the Black Electorate go? What/Who will fill this void? Why not the GOP? Why not a New Era of Conservatism(c) not an abandonment of traditional values but a New Era with a new collection of conservatives with the same core values and principles! The opportunity is ripe for conservatives and the GOP to expand the equation of Conservatism. We need a new partner and alliance for America. The New Era of Conservatism(c)

Health Care for the SOUL

Of late across the country in various venues and Black households across the nation the discussion about health care is a major topic. We can expect more chatter and media coverage on this issue as we approach the presidential election in the fall. Besides the traditional concerns perculating around health care topics from insurance costs to coverage limitations there is a major blind spot in how health care policy impacts Black communities. Yet in these discussions with regard to the nation’s communities of color we have an opportunity to not just react but become proactive and design our own health care blueprints. When this topic reaches the airwaves and grapevines of discourse in Black communities instead of just another indictment on the levels of obesity in our community we need to augment this health care chatter with a focus that goes beyond our obessions with shirt and skirt sizes. We need to elevate the concern about the nation’s healthcare policies and make it specific to our collective objectives and issues. Our demands should include more mental health options for every age level in our community with program themes that focused on depression and family dysfunction. We need innovative programs that awake self esteem and self worth. We need health options that inspire, promote and cemente community values. Healthcare discussions in our communities should also encompass items on the menu that feed our minds and soul not just what is for dinner or lunch. There is more to staying healthy than mortality rates about cancer and heart diseases in our communities. We must acknowledge other items in our lives are just as toxic and lethal to our health and welfare. We need to define a menu for healtful community living. This menu does not have to be complex nor the latest gimmick or new age philosophy created by some fictional guru. It is therefore critical that we take the time to design a menu of healthy life that is not only comprehensive and balanced but at it’s core the focused is on our mental, spiritual and community centered needs. Our communities are not only unhealthy because of the items we digest but we are hungry in spirit becuase of items we don’t feed ourselves and our community. Our mental state of health is as critical as any diet. It is important that we feed our minds with good ideas and postive expereinces. One could argue that without a strong mental constitution a super healthy person without an equally progressive state of mind is a waste of good health. We need to give others compliments and share good work place outcomes. We need to affirm and reward positive behavior not just with our familes but also with friends and strangers. The content of a meaningful life is often items not on the menu. We must cultivate and harvest a loving and noturing enviorment. So in the absence of such a daily menu we must develop and create a menu of life that does focus on items which enhances our daily living as we navigate in the place called America. On an individual and collective level we must reject toxic thoughts that seek to enter inside our bodies. When we eat our daily meals we should never read negative materials nor watch negative images on the TV or the computer screens and cell phones. We should monitor emails and avoid downloading toxic and counterproductive materials from all sources including friends and associates. We should digest good music, inhale wonderful aromas, touch beautiful things and absorb the atmospheric of imagination. We should watch wonderful images and eat the splendor of the world. Our menu for life is more than just eating a happy meal but also living a life that is happy, positive and rewarding.

DRONE ALERT

DRONE ALERT Our country spends billions of dollars on the purchase of weapons and hi tech security devices under the premise of national defense and the protection and safety of the home land. Retired generals leave our arm forces to peddle their services to defense contractors in the weapons industry. America not only arms itself but our nation is also the number one arms dealer and weapons supplier in the world. We have more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation on the globe. America is indeed a profitable merchant in the market of warfare products. Last week this escalation in military purchases and devices have now come to the our homeland not to protect us from our external foes but to assist and augment the armory of our local police departments. The Federal Aviation Administration loosened the restrictions on local police departments usage of surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles also commonly know as DRONES. Our nation’s high court the Supreme Court has even ruled that warrantless surveillance by manned aircraft is not unconstitutional nor violates the 4th Amendment of our federal constitution. In far to many powerful public and private circles there are focused advocates of introducing the military into our urban cities and venues. We now face the specter of entire cities being profiled by the usage of military designed DRONES. Local municipalities already burden by fiscal deficits and lousy revenues are actually spending hugh outlays of their budgets in the purchase of these hi tech anti- freedom profile driven devices. Yet where is the outrage from our public officials, activist groups and even police unions over these invasive surveillance and anti privacy domestic military machines in our nation’s urban airspace?? One of the real dark potentials of these DRONES is not only it’s ugly invasion and violation of privacy rights but these DRONES also have the capacity to be lethal and deadly. The applications and operational features of DRONES are truly unimaginable. The growing militarization of our local law enforcement departments is not to be embraced by fictional claims of terrorism and excessive urban crimes . We must reject and defeat the myths about crime and anarchy in our urban cities. We must defuse and deflate the notions that our urban cities are cesspools of violence and crime. The proliferation of the myth of crime and the profiling of entire bandwidths of people based upon their hue and types of clothing is dangerous. Such a public policy creates a fertile soil for the introduction of military devices like DRONES into our domestic venues. DRONES are part of the arsenal of gadgets and devices which destroy the freedoms of all Americans. We must reject all kinds of devices and gadgets which at the end of the day are WMD’s on American Soil.

WAY NOW

The evolution of America in 2013 has created for Black Americans a new cultural mantra. No longer are we viewed as a civil rights group or a minority collective in search of parity and equality. Black Americans are no longer the most significant minority group in the nation. Our destiny is ours and ours alone no one is going to rescue or take us to the promise land.

Into this new reality it is imperative that we develop and articulate a new modern theme which defines our present day mantra, agenda, agency and our course of action. I propose our new Black Ethos be defined as "Way Now". Instead of leveraging our history as a people who created civil rights in America or the nation's premier minority group we must now evolve beyond this legacy.

This cultural paradigm shift of course requires a lot of work and consciousness. It is more than just another intellectual exercise and political construct but a living and real time pursuit for the community at large. The 'Way Now" ethos is more than a shorthand drive by renaissance platform but a living real time manifesto and series of living principles which understands and acknowledges the reality of the moment for Black Americans living in a post industrial nation in the year 2013. It is a reality that recognizes our present day standing in America.

 A nation which continues as a society to not only marginalize Black folks but continues to wage a civil war against us. Into this real time reality it demands that Black folks take complete control of our destiny and status not as segregationists and isolationists but as a collective of progressive and pragmatic people with a agenda driven by social and cultural utilitarian themes and objectives.

Under the umbrella of a culture and society which adopts 'Way Now" it means that we must heal our wounds and repair the shortcomings which plague our community that prevents us from reaching and attaining our individual and collective goals as a community. 'Way Now" requires a new paradigm which begins before the birth of our children to the end years of seniors.

We must charter a course which designs a blueprint for every member of our community from those fractured by decadence and decay to those who sparkle with genius and productivity. "Way Now" requires a respect for honesty and recognition of reality. It does not tolerate excuses, denial, avoidance, deflection and failure. It embraces the future not the past. It cultivates innovation not the endorsement of historical alliances from our historical past. "Way Now" means we shape our future today and proceed accordingly.

We are the architects for the solutions and ideas which advance the community. "Way Now" is the living template for the future of Black America 2013