Virtual Nation: Reaching beyond The Black Divide!

African Americans of the 21st century will engage the world with an entirely different set of tools than our forebears of even decades past. As we enter an aggressively globalizing world economy we will find allies far afield of our communities and neighborhoods and forge alliances in every more eccentric circles. COntrary to many who feel Presidential candidate Barack Obama's purported ties to corporate America is a negative, that his very successful effort to create a coalition of Americans from all walks of life is tatamount to selling out African Americans, and that a policy of healing racial division is to deny historical grievances of African American descendants of slavery, I believe these efforts to bridge the African American paradigm are critical.

Globalization of the world's national economies will continue unabated, not only because of corporate energies committed to cheap labor and reduced regulation but also because our communication tools have almost completely eliminated time, distance and language barriers. The Internet has shrunken the playing field and create numerous opportunities and challenges to typical American ways of creating a livable income. It is imperative that African Americans think in terms of how we can most effectively leverage technology tools, skills and resources to accommodate the relentless and blistering pace of change engulfing us, which truly has nothing at all to do with race.

A quick look at where America stands in relation to world economic efficiency and growth can be had from this excerpt from Money & Markets Report which quotes a Bloomberg source of information on the state of our economy in the world:

For 2007 Stock Market Returns, 64 Countries Out-ranked the U.S.!
Rank

Country

% Return
1. China-179.8
2. Ukraine-135.4
3. Slovenia-96.9
4. Nigeria-90.9
5. Botswana-86.2
6. Croatia-80.8
7. Brazil-72.4
8. Turkey-71.9
9. Mauritius-70.0
10. India-65.2
11. Oman-61.9
12. Bulgaria-60.1
13. Egypt-56.3
14. Hong Kong-55.5
15. Serbia-55.0
16. United Arab Emirates-51.8
17. Indonesia-45.5
18. Peru-45.0
19. Philippines-44.3
20. Israel-43.7
21. Saudi Arabia-40.9
22. Malaysia-40.6
23. Pakistan-38.5
24. Cyprus-36.6
25. Jordan-36.3
26. Botswana-35.7
27. Germany-35.2
28. Qatar-34.3
29. Thailand-32.7
30. Kuwait-32.0
31. South Korea-31.4
32. Czech Republic-30.7
33. Norway-30.4
34. Greece-30.3
35. Portugal-28.5
36. Romania-27.7
37. Lebanon-26.8
38. Singapore-26.5
39. Ghana-25.6
40. Canada-25.1
41. Bahrain-24.6
42. Australia-24.1
43. Vietnam-23.6
44. Poland-23.6
45. Luxembourg-22.9
46. Slovakia-21.5
47. Chile-21.4
48. Russian Federation-19.2
49. Tunisia-19.0
50. South Africa-18.7
51. Spain-18.6
52. Denmark-16.2
53. Hungary-15.9
54. Lithuania-15.4
55. Netherlands-15.1
56. Namibia-14.5
57. Finland-14.3
58. Malta-12.0
59. France-12.0
60. Austria-11.8
61. Iceland-11.5
62. Mexico-10.8
63. Taiwan-9.3
64. New Zealand-8.5
65 United States-6.4
Source: Bloomberg

This dismal performance can't be ignored and suggests we have serious problems to address before we can reclaim either moral or political authority in world leadership. This dismal performance is color blind. It includes African Americans, and white Americans of all persuasions. Any time Botswana leads the United States of America in economic performance by over 150% percentiles, the problem has long been out of hand and the people we have all relied on to protect our interests, meaning the public interest-our jobs, our credit, our dollar and our tax revenues have sold us out in ways considerable only as treasonous. It is no longer a matter of who to elect to another term of this insanity but who should go to jail for participating in the most horrendous betrayal by American political leadership, in the entire history of this country.

Is it possible that our inability to collar our criminal politicians of local, state and federal ilk, operating in advanced stages of greed morbidity is having this enormous impact on our ability to compete in the world markets?

Is it also possible that because we insist on being divided by race, within race, by religion within religion and by the least of all reasonable divisors-political opinion, which amounts to squat in the grand scheme of things, that we are dividing ourselves right out of existence? Even with the best of intentions, An Obama Presidency will take all of one term and half of another before we can see a turnaround and that only if he takes extraordinarily drastic measures.

African Americans absolutely must join forces with our like-minded Caucasian, Asian, Latin and other ethnic American countrymen and women if we are to correct this very alarming state of affairs. The alternative is to continue to slide into chaos and oblivion; a state of struggle that will only encourage and increase the constrictor grip of fascism upon us all and destroy our freedom, relative though it is.

The AfricanAmericanLoveblog.blogspot.com/

It's done. With one click you can now get it all out! Let's talk about it. Let's straighten it out! This one is for Sistah C., for Media, for SassyScribe, for shining A.M, for Zene and all the other sistahs I love, love, love for their beautiful womanliness. Tell us what is really happening in the hearts and minds of Africa descendant women! We are listening! One click! Just one Go ahead, Do It now!

TheAfricanAmericanLoveBlog

New Blog On African American Relationships

It seems there is a crying need for African American men and women to establish a platform for detente when it comes to how we relate to each other in love, marriage and family. To that end, not only are we creating a forum for this purpose, the blog is in development. Stay tuned.

Don't Fall For The OkiDoke!

There has never been a time in history when people have been more polarized to extremisms. Extreme views, in my opinion are postures determined to hide a flaw somewhere. With legs spread wide, arms crossed, mouth fixed and a glare that admits no light and almost always broadcasts hatred of something, extremism is identical wherever you see it manifest. The same look will bleed from the eyes of Taliban fighters, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian Fundamentalists, Capitalists and communists, dictators and revolutionaries. Here is a list of things all extremists have in common with each other:

1. A very superficial understanding of the true cause of their suffering-This includes feminists and sexists, Zionists and Fascists, Catholics and Protestants, rich and poor. [Wait! What makes you think the rich suffer! Well they do! We'll talk about that in subsequent posts but take my word for it, they suffer profoundly.]

2. Because they have a superficial understanding of the true cause of their suffering, they create and subsequently attack the wrong enemy every single time, without fail.

3. Because they conduct the ensuing war against the wrong enemy [every single time]
they are never, ever relieved of their suffering; they never, ever win the war and because of their shame at discovering this bitter truth, they never ever admit that they didn't win the war after all, nor that they were fighting the wrong enemy in the first place.

4. They completely and totally disconnected from love for children, spouses, friends, pets, or other objects of love, even when they assure themselves this is not true. Don't believe it? Then consider this: That not one extremist will blink twice about sending a loved one into harm's way to get at their wrong enemy, whether by sending a child loaded with C4 to detonate a suicidal/homicidal charge [I say homicidal because the person who hypnotizes another into such an act of insanity is committing murder] in the midst of non-combatants, or-by acts of aggression inviting the wrath of armed forces into their midst, extremists in every case will validate this statement as true.

5. Extremists seldom, if ever, generate enough introspective truth to know they need psychiatric help.

That said, I will leave you to look around and find these people in your midst. I promise you, they will suddenly, as if by magic begin to pop up all around you. Maybe your wife, your husband, your son, daughter or best friend. Try not to show that you know. Just observe for a while until you are certain that the symptoms I have shown you above are present. You will find some others, because if you live with an extremist, you have probably been subjected to violence or the threat of violence to your own person at some time or other.

O.K. Enough for now. Next Time- The OkiDoke!