Entries Tagged 'Political' ↓

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

1. Start by watching the news, reading the news online or subscribing to a newspaper. If you don’t have time to read the paper every day try just scanning the headlines or arranging to just receive the paper on Sunday.

2. Subscribe to ‘The Week’ it’s a great magazine that condenses all of the week’s international news. The various editions (U.K., U.S.A and Australia) provide a digest of the week’s news and editorial commentary from global media to provide readers with multiple political viewpoints. In addition to news and opinion, the magazine also covers science, business and the arts. You can also consider subscribing to Time Magazine or Newsweek.

3. Understand what the BRIC countries are (Brazil, Russia, India and China) or also referred to as “The Big Four”. These countries encompass over 25% of the world’s land coverage and 40% of the world’s population and hold a combined GDP (PPP) of 18.486 trillion dollars. On almost every scale, they would be the largest entity on the global stage. These four countries are among the biggest and fastest growing emerging markets offering great opportunities for the western world’s investments.

4. Read up on which countries have or are believed to have nuclear weapons (USA, Russia, U.K. France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel). Research which 5 countries (U.S.A., Russia, U.K., France and China) have signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty also called ‘NPT’ or ‘NNPT’ and why other countries have not. Consisting of a preamble and eleven articles, the NPT treaty is sometimes interpreted as a three-pillar system: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.

5. Keep up to speed on which on going wars are still current, who’s involved and why. For example: Libyan Civil War, Yemen and Syria.

6. Understand the difference between Democracy and Communism. Know which countries that are still ruled by the Communist Party, for example: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. Also Make it a priority to become familiar with Heads of State, Prime Ministers and or Presidents of the leading countries.

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Documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation’s children, and explores the roles that charter schools and education reformers could play in offering hope for the future. We see the statistics every day — students dropping out, science and math scores falling, and schools closing due to lack of funding. What we don’t see are the names and faces of the children whose entire futures are at stake due to our own inability to enact change. There was a time when the American public education system was a model admired by the entire world. Today other countries are surpassing us in every respect, and the slogan “No Child Left Behind” has become a cynical punch line. The Film Documents Bianca, Emily, Anthony, Daisy, and Francisco who are five students who deserve better. By investigating how the current system is actually obstructing their education instead of bolstering it, Guggenheim opens the door to considering possible options for transformation and improvement. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

President-elect Barack Obama

“In Our Life Time”

By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

We have all heard stories about those few magical transformative moments in African-American history, extraordinary ritual occasions through which the geographically and socially diverse black community—a nation within a nation, really—molds itself into one united body, determined to achieve one great social purpose and to bear witness to the process by which this grand achievement occurs. The first time was New Year’s Day in 1863, when tens of thousands of black people huddled together all over the North waiting to see if Abraham Lincoln would sign the Emancipation Proclamation. The second was the night of June 22, 1938, the storied rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, when black families and friends crowded around radios to listen and cheer as the Brown Bomber knocked out Schmeling in the first round. The third, of course, was Aug. 28, 1963, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed to the world that he had a dream, in the shadow of a brooding Lincoln, peering down on the assembled throng, while those of us who couldn’t be with him in Washington sat around our black-and-white television sets, bound together by King’s melodious voice through our tears and with quickened-flesh.

But we have never seen anything like this. Nothing could have prepared any of us for the eruption (and, yes, that is the word) of spontaneous celebration that manifested itself in black homes, gathering places and the streets of our communities when Sen. Barack Obama was declared President-elect Obama. From Harlem to Harvard, from Maine to Hawaii—and even Alaska—from “the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire … [to] Stone Mountain of Georgia,” as Dr. King put it, each of us will always remember this moment, as will our children, whom we woke up to watch history being made.

My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can’t quite believe it!

How many of our ancestors have given their lives—how many millions of slaves toiled in the fields in endlessly thankless and mindless labor—before this generation could live to see a black person become president? “How long, Lord?” the spiritual goes; “not long!” is the resounding response. What would Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois say if they could know what our people had at long last achieved? What would Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman say? What would Dr. King himself say? Would they say that all those lost hours of brutalizing toil and labor leading to spent, half-fulfilled lives, all those humiliations that our ancestors had to suffer through each and every day, all those slights and rebuffs and recriminations, all those rapes and murders, lynchings and assassinations, all those Jim Crow laws and protest marches, those snarling dogs and bone-breaking water hoses, all of those beatings and all of those killings, all of those black collective dreams deferred—that the unbearable pain of all of those tragedies had, in the end, been assuaged at least somewhat through Barack Obama’s election? This certainly doesn’t wipe that bloody slate clean. His victory is not redemption for all of this suffering; rather, it is the symbolic culmination of the black freedom struggle, the grand achievement of a great, collective dream. Would they say that surviving these horrors, hope against hope, was the price we had to pay to become truly free, to live to see—exactly 389 years after the first African slaves landed on these shores—that “great gettin’ up morning” in 2008 when a black man—Barack Hussein Obama—was elected the first African-American president of the United States?

I think they would, resoundingly and with one voice proclaim, “Yes! Yes! And yes, again!” I believe they would tell us that it had been worth the price that we, collectively, have had to pay—the price of President-elect Obama’s ticket.

On that first transformative day, when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Frederick Douglass, the greatest black orator in our history before Martin Luther King Jr., said that the day was not a day for speeches and “scarcely a day for prose.” Rather, he noted, “it is a day for poetry and song, a new song.” Over 3,000 people, black and white abolitionists together, waited for the news all day in Tremont Temple, a Baptist church a block from Boston Common. When a messenger burst in, after 11 p.m., and shouted, “It is coming! It is on the wires,” the church went mad; Douglass recalled that “I never saw enthusiasm before. I never saw joy.” And then he spontaneously led the crowd in singing “Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow,” John Brown’s favorite hymn:

Blow ye the trumpet, blow!

The gladly solemn sound

Let all the nations know,

To earth’s remotest bound:

The year of jubilee is come!

The year of jubilee is come!

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

At that moment, an entire race, one that in 1863 in the United States comprised 4.4 million souls, became a unified people, breathing with one heart, speaking with one voice, united in mind and spirit, all their aspirations concentrated into a laser beam of almost blind hope and desperate anticipation.

It is astounding to think that many of us today—myself included—can remember when it was a huge deal for a black man or woman to enter the White House through the front door, and not through the servants’ entrance. Paul Cuffe, the wealthy sea captain, shipping merchant, and the earliest “Back to Africa” black colonist, will forever have the distinction of being the first black person to be invited to the White House for an audience with the president. Cuffe saw President James Madison at the White House on May 2, 1812, at precisely 11 a.m. and asked the president’s intervention in recovering his famous brig Traveller, which had been impounded because officials said he had violated the embargo with Britain. Cuffe, after the Quaker fashion, called Madison “James”; “James,” in turn, got Paul’s brig back for him, probably because Cuffe and Madison both favored the emigration of freed slaves back to Africa. (Three years later, on Dec. 10, 1815, Cuffe used this ship to carry 38 black people from the United States to Sierra Leone.)

From Frederick Douglass, who visited Lincoln three times during his presidency (and every president thereafter until his death in 1895), to Soujourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, each prominent black visitor to the White House caused people to celebrate another “victory for the race.” Blacks became frequent visitors to Franklin Roosevelt’s White House; FDR even had a “Kitchen Cabinet” through which blacks could communicate the needs of their people. Because of the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson had a slew of black visitors, as well. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, I attended a White House reception with so many black political, academic and community leaders that it occurred to me that there hadn’t been as many black people in the Executive Mansion perhaps since slavery. Everyone laughed at the joke, because they knew, painfully, that it was true.

Visiting the White House is one thing; occupying the White House is quite another. And yet, African-American aspirations to the White House date back generations. The first black man put forward on a ticket as a political party’s nominee for U.S. president was George Edwin Taylor, on the National Liberty Party ticket in 1904. Portions of his campaign document could have been written by Barack Obama:

“… in the light of the history of the past four years, with a Republican president in the executive chair, and both branches of Congress and a majority of the Supreme Court of the same political faith, we are confronted with the amazing fact that more than one-fifth of the race are actually disfranchised, robbed of all the rights, powers and benefits of true citizenship, we are forced to lay aside our prejudices, indeed, our personal wishes, and consult the higher demands of our manhood, the true interests of the country and our posterity, and act while we yet live, ‘ere the time when it shall be too late. No other race of our strength would have quietly submitted to what we have during the past four years without a rebellion, a revolution, or an uprising.”

The revolution that Taylor goes on to propose, he says, is one “not by physical force, but by the ballot,” with the ultimate sign of the success being the election of the nation’s first black president.

But given all of the racism to which black people were subjected following Reconstruction and throughout the first half of the 20th century, no one could actually envision a Negro becoming president—”not in our lifetimes,” as our ancestors used to say. When James Earl Jones became America’s first black fictional president in the 1972 film, “The Man,” I remember thinking, “Imagine that!” His character, Douglass Dilman, the president pro tempore of the Senate, ascends to the presidency after the president and the speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse, and after the vice president declines the office due to advanced age and ill health. A fantasy if ever there was one, we thought. But that year, life would imitate art: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm attempted to transform “The Man” into “The Woman,” becoming the first black woman to run for president in the Democratic Party. She received 152 first-ballot votes at the Democratic National Convention. Then, in 1988, Jesse Jackson got 1,219 delegate votes at the Democratic convention, 29 percent of the total, coming in second only to the nominee, Michael Dukakis.

The award for prescience, however, goes to Jacob K. Javits, the liberal Republican senator from New York who, incredibly, just a year after the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, predicted that the first black president would be elected in the year 2000. In an essay titled “Integration from the Top Down” printed in Esquire magazine in 1958, he wrote:

“What manner of man will this be, this possible Negro Presidential candidate of 2000? Undoubtedly, he will be well-educated. He will be well-traveled and have a keen grasp of his country’s role in the world and its relationships. He will be a dedicated internationalist with working comprehension of the intricacies of foreign aid, technical assistance and reciprocal trade. … Assuredly, though, despite his other characteristics, he will have developed the fortitude to withstand the vicious smear attacks that came his way as he fought to the top in government and politics … those in the vanguard may expect to be the targets for scurrilous attacks, as the hate mongers, in the last ditch efforts, spew their verbal and written poison.”

In the same essay, Javits predicted both the election of a black senator and the appointment of the first black Supreme Court justice by 1968. Edward Brooke was elected to the Senate by Massachusetts voters in 1966. Thurgood Marshall was confirmed in 1967. Javits also predicted that the House of Representatives would have “between thirty and forty qualified Negroes” in the 106th Congress in 2000. In fact, there were 37 black U.S. representatives, among them 12 women.

Sen. Javits was one very keen prognosticator. When we consider the characteristics that he insisted the first black president must possess—he must be well-educated, well-traveled, have a keen grasp of his country’s role in the world, be a dedicated internationalist and have a very thick skin—it is astonishing how accurately he is describing the background and character of Barack Obama.

I wish we could say that Barack Obama’s election will magically reduce the numbers of teenage pregnancies or the level of drug addiction in the black community. I wish we could say that what happened last night will suddenly make black children learn to read and write as if their lives depended on it, and that their high school completion rates will become the best in the country. I wish we could say that these things are about to happen, but I doubt that they will.

But there is one thing we can proclaim today, without question: that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America means that “The Ultimate Color Line,” as the subtitle of Javits’ Esquire essay put it, has, at long last, been crossed. It has been crossed by our very first postmodern Race Man, a man who embraces his African cultural and genetic heritage so securely that he can transcend it, becoming the candidate of choice to tens of millions of Americans who do not look like him.

How does that make me feel? Like I’ve always imagined my father and his friends felt back in 1938, on the day that Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling. But ten thousand times better than that. All I can say is “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound.”

1. The kids come first. As the self-described “Mom-in-Chief,” you’ve made it clear you’re going to protect your children from the spotlight. Jackie and Diana would be proud. Carefully doled-out photo ops and an appearance now and then on Access Hollywood should keep things on an even keel for a while. Having your mother come to live with you at the White House to help out is genius.

2. Have sex regularly—with your husband. You don’t seem to need any coaching in this department, since it’s pretty clear you and your husband are pretty hot for each other. Keeping the home fires burning between state dinners and trips to the Middle East is key to keep your marriage strong. And watch out for blonde movie stars. Screenings of any film starring Scarlett Johansson aren’t recommended.

3. Always be camera ready. Wearing a towel around your waist on the beach just won’t do anymore. (Call Michael Kors—he’ll be more than happy to whip something up for you.) Keep in mind, those pictures will live on forever, and these days they go viral in under an hour.

4. Befriend the fashionistas. Bye bye, Maria Pinto. Jackie always wore the best of the best; Diana went from frumpy to fabulous once she traded up to couture. You’re in the big leagues now, so upgrade to Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, and Ralph Lauren. You can still wear J.Crew, though, when you go on The View.

5. Don’t get too chummy with the help. Jackie smartly instilled a respect and loyalty in her staff that persists to this day; Diana made the fatal mistake of spilling her guts to her butler. Paul Burrell repaid her by selling her out in every way imaginable. Feeling stressed? Call a friend.

6. Break out of “the bubble.” Jackie was known to go horseback riding rather than spend the afternoon entertaining congressional wives; Diana took her kids to McDonald’s and waited on line. Your family captured the public’s imagination because (among other things) you were so much like the people that voted for your husband. Don’t lose touch with everyday life, even if it means having to negotiate a bit more with your Secret Service detail.

7. Put down the Blackberry, pick up a pen. We all know about your husband’s love of technology, but you’ll score some serious points for style and grace with the heartfelt handwritten note. It’s (slightly) less likely they’ll wind up on the Internet. And they’ll look so much better than email in the history books.

8. Keep your press secretary in the loop. Make your flack your ally (and the bad guy whenever you need to). When Diana kept Patrick Jephson in the dark about her headline-making interview with the BBC (“There were three of us in this marriage”), Jephson resigned—and promptly wrote his own book.

9. Redecorate. Sure, we’re in a recession, but that’s no reason not to spruce things up a bit and make the place more family-friendly. We hear that you’ve tapped interior designer Michael Smith for the job. Smart pick. (If he’s good enough for Spielberg … ) And, if all else fails, Jackie found some fabulous antiques in the White House basement.

10. Don’t listen to anyone There’s no official job description for First Lady, so have at it!