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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

FUBU

Mama may have
Papa may have
But God bless the child
That's got his own!

It's time for us to grow up - Mama did her part in teaching us about our heritage, Papa did his part in fighting for our right to vote, now it's our turn to do our part. We can not depend on anyone outside of our community for the sustenance of our community - we have to do for self. For Us, By Us. We built pyramids and temples. We developed astronomy and mathematics. We have a rich heritage of creativity and success, yet this current generation is at risk of becoming a permanently powerless underclass if we don't get our act together and in a hurry. We have to create a base of power within our communities that can enable our candidates to represent our interests in America's government, but we have to do it ourselves - For Us, By Us.

He who has the gold makes the rules, and our communities touch billions of dollars every year, so you would think that we should be able to amass the necessary capital fairly quickly. Our problem is that we spend every penny that we get and then borrow against tomorrow for some meaningless pleasure today. We have to discipline ourselves to get out of debt and stay out of debt so that we can amass capital sufficient to defend ourselves in this society. As Don Lucchesi said in The Godfather: Part III - "Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger." We need big guns and strong brothers and sisters who know the difference between Cup & Saucer and a Frappuccino. That is true financial independence and that must be our purpose.


OUR COMMUNITIES
It takes a village to raise a child, as the griots of old would tell you. The author of Ecclesiastes writes:

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together,
they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

As America destroys itself in an orgy of self-centered comsumptionism, we have to create self-sustaining centers of commerce that can support our communities - from raw materials and natural resources through finished products and services to recycling and waste management. We have to do for self - for our own communities. There is strength in numbers, and if each of us takes responsibility for working together in unity toward the goal of financial independence through cooperative economics, we will achieve our purpose.

OUR CANDIDATES
We need elected officials who will help us to achieve and maintain our financial independence, so we have to identify, groom, and support politicians for elected office. Initially, as we build the Black Donor Class, we must work with fairly established candidates, but we need candidates who will aggressively fight for our goal of financial independence for our communities. It is time out for us allowing The Ministry of Truth to choose and define our leadership as if we're Afghans or Iraqis. We must choose our own leadership without any external interference. We must chart our own course instead of allowing the state to predestine us as Gammas. We can do better and we must do better, and we will need our candidates to represent our agenda if we are to be successful.

OUR VOTES
Our votes are more than just the marks that we make on a ScanTron sheet once every two years. We vote with the money that we donate to our candidates. We vote with the time we spend helping our candidates to campaign and win. We vote by applying our unique skills and talents to our candidates' campaigns. And while individually each of us can make a small difference with our votes, collectively we can move mountains. 100 African-Americans committed to applying ourselves toward the financial independence of our communities, committed to using our votes together in order to expedite the financial independence of our candidates, collectively can change the world. We just have to show up and vote for our financial independence, because if we are not financially independent then we are still in slavery...

OUR COMMUNITIES
OUR CANDIDATES
OUR VOTES

That's the way we roll, y'heard?

Emancipated by Athanasius @ 11:08 PM

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