An American Way of Death: Ferguson Freedom Fighter Darren Seals Assassinated

7, September 2016 -- The tragic death last night of Ferguson, Mo., resident and activist Darren Seals closely mirrors the death of another young black Ferguson resident two years ago: DeAndre Joshua, Like DeAndre, Seals was found with a gunshot wound to the head inside of a burning car. This is the same Darren Seals who was on the frontline of the protests borne after the shooting death of Mike Brown at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson there in 2014. In the years since the Ferguson riots the justice department has made a series of recommendations for police reform in that city. Seals’ activism played no small part in getting that far. He also participated and food and clothing drives around his community, and agitated the democratic party to respect the black vote. At 29 years old he is taken from that community – taken from us; and I realize that the crime of terror this nation projects while fabricating bogeymen around  the world, will never stop being inflicted upon we persons of color until we are again legal slaves, property of the one percent. Or we ourselves force a change. 

In North Dakota, Native Americans from myriad tribes are protesting and fighting to protect their land, water and sacred ground from the Dakota Access pipeline construction project that will send an oil conduit right through their sovereign nation. Last Saturday during the Labor Day weekend mercenaries armed with attack-dogs and weapons descended upon and attacked the entire peaceful protest. It was Bloody Sunday all over again.  Video and photos are already flooding the internet with images from the merciless attack, blacked –out by the corporate news networks in a way the Bundy takeover of the Oregon wildlife sanctuary never was. Only the fastidiousness of the progressive press has assured this story has received any national attention at all. 

In these two events – the gangland style murder of Darren Seals and the corporate-sponsored mercenary assault on peaceful Native protesters – we are again witnessing a level of state violence one only inflicts on another when they are at war. And despite having never declared one, persons of color and their real allies are literally under the guns of what is functionally a Nazi coup that has taken over police departments and their fraternal orders. How painful and paradoxical it must be for Seals’ loved ones to have to rely on St. Louis County sheriffs and police to lead this investigation, when they should be number one atop anyone’s list of suspects. How comforting it must be for the St. Louis law enforcement to be able to bury a vocal, black thorn in their side, and to have the final say on his death. Just wait for the obligatory reports of drug history, complete with a mugshot any second now. 

People of color live under the hammer of state terror here all the time. We never had a nostalgic age of life’s simpler times. America, by it’s bloodstained and avaricious quest to join Europe in empire, has made reality here for people of color hell, as it has around the world.   

It is reality. 

It is a condition the mythically ”exceptional” majority would not savor if the roles were reversed. I doubt many whites would stop fighting for their freedom if we abused them and used code words like “commie” and “terrorist” to mis-characterize their struggles. No law or court can ever make the system of white power respect the rights of persons of color.   

This is a kind of terrorism that is not easy for blacks and Latinos and Native Americans to prove in US courts, for the courts give the system cover. Our color makes us guilty until proven innocent. I knew this before I watched a policeman perjure himself with the straightest of faces in my own misdemeanor case nearly two years ago because I was biking without a light at night. I have since been unable to get a limited teaching license in a state I had over 10 years of professional experience. 

The very fact that we must petition those same police departments’ internal affairs, or other agencies (city, county, and state civil rights commissions for example) connected to police and sheriff’s departments through every state of criminal justice shows an absurd existence for POC. The fact that we even have to petition the same US Justice Department that helped establish COINTELPRO, and was proven complicit in the death of MLK by a Memphis jury in 1999, shows you how absurd existence for people of color is in these times.   America is infested with a hate, a terror bug that has festered and grown here since this nations’ inception: Raping this land from Native Americans, enslaving millions of African to build it. The systems of disparity across every social, health and economic indicator broadcasts to the world that this is far from the land of the free.  

Thank you Mr. Seals for your strength and leadership in this struggle for peace and equality, may you rest in power.

Rashard Zanders is a pioneer in slash careers, and at any given time could be found teaching, writing, agitating, jamming, learning, busking, creating, caffeinating, de-caffeinating, hiking, biking, loving, and daydreaming. He enjoys studying Pan African Philosophy and its potential to affect positive change, He is the proud parent of Thrilla the Cat and can be reached via email at rashard.zanders@gmail.com   

A Nut and a yahoo...rolled up into one Israeli President

http://www.globalresearch.ca/netanyahus-safety-in-paris-israels-shin-bet-security-force-manhandled-frances-prime-minister-in-grand-synagogue-netanyahu-insulted-french-jewish-leadership/5425668

MLK was hated in his time: Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/19/1358828/-Never-Forget-that-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-was-Hated-by-White-America?detail=email

Enthusiastic killer of Brown People elevated to Amerikkkan sainthood thanks to Clint Eastwood film "American Sniper"

Rashard Zanders, Twin Cities, MN -- This month, the beginning of the new year we witnessed two Hollywood productions, which by default means propaganda but that's for another story, that reflect the myriad divisions and the central dichotomy  between whom white Americans perceive to be heroes, and the heroes of African Americans.  African Americans aren't permitted violent, assertive masculine assassins for their cause. Maybe athletes, singers, or men of status without substance who have successfully imitated the oppressor's dress, style and values that only skin tone helps tell them apart.

What we have been spoon fed as the African America form of heroism is defined by the most passive and meek interpretations of Civil Rights warriors, many of whom were, and are bona fide radicals.  However, the radical legacy has been so squeezed out of modern Civil Rights celebrations in America  you have to wonder who the celebrations are actually for, in a nation that doesn't live up  to Kings' Dream.

On the other (white) hand, from George Washington and Andrew Jackson, Davey Crockett and Theo Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, mainstream America has heroes who are men of bloody action, and they're bloody for good reasons. They're only bloody because they want to protect us (not "us", but you know what I mean) or establish a nation of freedom and protect little Johnny and Suzie from the hordes of non-Aryan people who just hate hate hate our (not really "our") cherished way of life.  

The film "Selma" and the film "American Sniper", released in close proximity to each other, reflect the dichotomy apparent in what kind of hero Black children will look up to, contrasted with the paradigm of violent global domination that is apparently the birthright of civilizing white children. That is my main problem with films like Clint Eastwood's American Sniper  the film bio of one of America's most lethal -- verbose killers.  Even the logo for the company Kyle erected stateside references the Crusades.

A logo styled after the cross of the Knights Templar takes some premeditation.  Reading some of the quotes attributed to Mr. Kyle makes you suspect he probably had no sense of irony.  To hate people that much whilst someplace you don't belong....sheesh.  What gave you the right to hate that deeply?  Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11 and the US were the uninvited guests anyway.  And why aren't we talking about prosecuting Bush/Cheney administration officials for their myriad crimes that led us into war and economic collapse?

Amazing racial arrogance.  I don't think racists even perceive that victims of racism hate racisim, and racists.   What is even more frustrating is that Black people likely contributed close to half of the box-office bonanza.  Another bigot elevated to sainthood.  Absurd times, these.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/cut-her-head-shocking-death-threats-you-can-receive-mocking-eastwoods-american

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle

https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/548257524504621056/photo/1

https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/chris-kyle-shot-the-devil-is-dead-in-texas/

http://www.blacktalkradionetwork.com/tag/sniper/


Rashard Zanders is freelance writer living and working in these American Twin Cities, MN.  He is not a sniper, but he has battled the h.pylori bacteria to a temporary draw, and been known to take the last beer at otherwise friendly gatherings.  He can be reached via alex.zandersIV@gmail.com or at 872-228-4179 

FLIP A COP THE BIRD FOR FREEDOM!

http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/01/federal-court-says-its-100-legal-to-give-cops-the-finger/

Economic disparities, police brutalities, torture in our prisons and abroad, police state-war economy: When do we say Enough?

Saturday, January 17, 2015 noon

http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases?ref=us#p=1

Rashard Zanders, Twin Cities, MN -- A culture that rapes and steals land from one People and enslaves another People from another land to build their Utopia -- using rape, murder, deception, mis-education and lessons from the Bible -- could be expected in it's time to achieve at best a culture of permanent disparity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323883/Johnny-Milanos-chilling-photos-American-Nazis-annual-National-Socialist-Movement-convention-Atlanta.html

The genocidal origins of the Land of the Free(land) and the Home of the alleged Brave would not beget an subsequent racial melting pot never had, and seems apparent that it never will. What we have inherited are: hyper violent power-and-control mechanisms via the military (this has always included the police as an occupying force), a propaganda machine believed by the masses to be innocuous entertainment (Hollywood) or reliable news (majority of Euro-centric news sources, many so-called alternatives presses and websites) participates, (under the umbrella of only 6 corporations) in a long practiced art of obfuscation, dismissal and/or outright distortions of issues facing communities of color.

http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases?ref=us#p=1

Here's to hoping 2015 witnesses a re-invigoration of the spiritual radical traditions of the ancestors we honor but whose wisdom we rarely feel the need to heed.  Cable and Dish are just too damn fun I suppose. But if you've stayed with me thus far you already know we are connected to a global struggle for Human Rights, a Pan-African struggle that transcends religion, creed, gender, sexuality, but is exclusively and violently exercised against people of color.  Black people, with or without our "allies" must confront this damning indictment of American history, culture and policy.  It is a prism through which all American history and  policies needs to be viewed.  It is a prism via which Blacks must learn to profile all the beneficiaries and institutions of white privilege.

Rashard Zanders is a freelance writer and editor whose views strangely parallel those of Blacklogic.blogspot.com.  He can be reached at 872.228.4179 or via email at alex.zandersIV@gmail.com

Invitation to an International Conference African Philosophical and Intellectual Responses to the Development Crisis in Africa June 10-14, 2015 Abakaliki, Nigeria in cooperation with Ebonyi State University

http://www.crvp.org/conf/2015/nigeria.html

Invitation to an International Conference

 African Philosophical and Intellectual Responses to the Development Crisis in Africa

                                                             

June 10-14, 2015                                                                Abakaliki, Nigeria

in cooperation with

 Ebonyi State University

Theme

                        

This conference focuses on evaluating the responses of the African intelligentsia to the current development crisis in the continent as well as encouraging reflections on the recurrent issues in the development crises such as the need to evolve a viable indigenous development oriented ideology that would adequately address such issues as identity and its construction in the context of globalization and cultural pluralism, determinism, freedom and responsibility, the individual and the collective, justice in plural, multi-cultural and international contexts, faith and reason in the public sphere, etc.   

Subthemes

Classifcations of Responses such as: Afro-pessimism; Re-colonization thesis; Nationalism; Afro-constructivism

African theories of Development

Ideology and Development

Justice and Development

Freedom and Responsibility

Ideolgy, Determinism and the Mechanisms of Change

Globalization, Pluralism and the State

Faith and Reason in the Public Sphere and Development

Application

There is no registration fee. Participants will cover their own travel costs and hotel. 

The application should include:

1) a vita that specifies the applicants educational background, professional positions and affiliations, and publications;

2) a letter of intent; and

3) the abstract of the paper by April 1, 2015; full paper by June 1, 2015.

Please send all the information to Joseph C. A. Agbakoba (jcaagbakoba@gmail.com), Jerry C. Chukwuokolo (jerrychidozie@yahoo.com) and cua-rvp@cua.edu.

Contact

Joseph C. A. Agbakoba

jcaagbakoba@gmail.com

Jerry C. Chukwuokolo

jerrychidozie@yahoo.com

American illusions succumb to Amerikkkan realities

Thursday, January 15, 2015

AMERICAN ILLUSIONS SUCCUMB TO AMERIKKKAN REALITIES
by Rashard Zanders, MN

"The arrests have raised questions about a

double standard for free speech here, with

one set of rules for the cartoonists who

freely skewered religions of all kinds,

even when Muslims, Catholics and others

objected, and yet were defended for their

right to do so, and another set for the

statements by Muslim supporters of the

gunmen, which have led to their

prosecution."


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/world/europe/french-rein-in-speech-backing-acts-of-terror.html?_r=0


So where did all those concerns about

American torture go? Or the entrenched

culture of violence and brutality against

Persons of Color in the United States?  At

Blacklogic.blogspot.com it would appear as

though America is flying without a moral

compass.  Wouldn't it be nice if one of our

go-to Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or Arab

boogey-men would kick the year off with a

nice, well-timed terrorist attack?  Sure

would go a long way in making people forget

about the aforementioned transgressions.

In homage to the elders, scholars, teachers

activists and thinkers who warned us via

Pan African, Afro-feminist,

eco/environmental and Human Rights

perspectives,  we revive

Blacklogic.Blogspot.com in the tradition of

the most intellectually sound thinkers, now

unimpeachably prophetic, those Philosophers

born from Struggle.

And this brings us to a much needed

reevaluation of the Civil Rights Movement,

whose historical import, Selma and

Hollywood romances not withstanding, has

been co-opted by the very culprits who were

it's target.  One of the accidental

blessings of social media --because making

your own dossier for the whole world to see

IS so Big Brother -- has been it's ability

to broadcast to us the Bay Transit Cop

shooting of Oscar Grant, the Ferguson and

Eric Garner deaths, and it's ability to

demystify the true function of the armed and

dangerous thin blue line we call police.

The another element which must force Black

Church leaders in particular, given the

role of the Black pastor as THE community

patriarch, are the American torture

revelations, too many, vast and detailed to

list all here.  Do we go on pretending that

this enemy is going to allow some mythic

equality when his very existence depends on

the slow and impoverished negations of our

own?  If 2014 ended with any lesson,

besides that we are ruled by war criminals,

is that "You can't shame the Devil": The

Devil feels no shame.

The American illusion has given way to the

Amerikkkan reality.  Despite the shootings

at the paper in France, the cutthroat

Western values that even the

disenfranchised love so much have been

invalidated by the violence, deception and

fear that lies beneath.

And Dr. King himself, on this day the Nation mocks his memory and his values, had evolved his philosophy to engage America for it's global sins, and tie the Civil Rights struggle to the global Human Rights  Struggle and the rest of the Pan African Diaspora; To profile Amerikkaa, as we are profiled by everyone daily, for it's toxic blankets given to Natives on the Trail of Tears,  for the Tortures and family  dissolution that nurtured American slavery, for the rape and pillaging of this land from Red People, there is much that Amerikka has to answer for which she and her European allies are unwilling to do. The west has no moral compass.  This we know to be true.The apparent fear is we wake up to this before every their self-made boogeyman have been spent.


Rashard Zanders is a freelance writer and 

grantmaker and coffee addict from Chicago, 

IL, now living in Minneapolis, with his Cat 

Thrilla.  He can be reached at 

872-228-4179.

The Obama Betrayal: A Trojan Horse gallops away further from his base

July 13, 2013 by Rashard Zanders –Princeton Park, Chicago Disclaimer: I voted twice for Barack Obama. The day after the November 2012 election I overheard two senior African American women quietly celebrating the President's re-election at a bus stop on the corner of 75th and Michigan Ave. Both ladies were smiling ear to ear, and exuded a peace reminiscent of Buddhist monks, and a satisfaction of those who'd been through a harsh, bitter battle and had emerged victorious. “That was worth growing old for,” said one woman to the other. Indeed, I too had been caught up in all the vitriolic, “my side is better than your side” election year distractions. Too often, and in 2013 too crucially, Black electorates are still preoccupied by the novelty of achieving “firsts”. Every February schools trot out the tired old curriculum of Blacks who were the first to do this or that thing in whichever institutions our fellow Americans have erected. Every sport has it's “first” black player, the first black champions, the first black to graduate, the first to serve, ad infinitum. Let's admit it, 2013 is a little late in the game to be celebrating firsts. President Barack Obama seem an ant-progressive Trojan horse, is seems political progressives in general, and Blacks voters in particular can't bring themselves around to this admittance. He has embraced the empowerment of the shadow state as well as the the crimes and misdemeanors of the previous administration: th0se of his cousin George W. Bush. But through the prism of reality, progressives in particular and Blacks in general have a paper champion in President Obama. And we can't blame it all on obstruction. He has willfully expanded and rubber-stamped policies straight out of the twisted minds of the COINTEL loving, Watergate thieving, Iran-Contra planning PNAC architects; as the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks to the GuardianUK and Washington Post reveal. And that is worth rigorous critique at the least, and outright resistance otherwise: At present there are myriad distressing probabilities uncovered by the recent revelations of an out of control shadow government. The tacit complicity of the big, “cool” tech companies that have become indispensible in many of our lives displays the merger of government with the corporate in stark relief: During this Administration's watch there is not one item produced by the tech world, not one gadget, operating system, webcam, laptop, pad, desktop, hardware, software, app...etc that isn't suspect for contamination with a back door. There is no one's word we can trust from the government or google or microsoft or skype or apple, (small caps intentional) to give honest answers regarding our privacy. “I believe Barack Obama was put into office to do what no Republican could ever have gotten away with. Obama has extended the wars, created new wars, extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, given additional bail out money to the banks, allowed the health insurance industry to write the healthcare bill, extended the Patriot Act, and signed the NDAA...under his watch not one member of the Bush Administration has been accountable for leading us into wars built on false evidence and lies, not one banker has been held accountable for the fraud and corruption that brought down the global economy, and the final nail in the coffin, [he] signed the NDAA bill...the National Defense Authorization Act makes America the battlefield and allows indefinite detention of U.S. Citizens suspected of “terrorist” leanings without due process.” From the article “Is Obama a Trojan Horse, a Psychopath, a Bad Boyfriend or all Three?” by Jill Dalton that appeared in the HuffPost September 20, 2012. Solomon Commissiong, in an October 9th 2012 article in The Black Agenda Report.com, wrote that: “It is painfully distressing to witness members of my community so willfully complicit with the lethal war policies simply because they are coming from a brown-skinned man. African Americans' honorable legacy of opposing Euro-American imperialist wars is quickly eroding.” No doubt, Obama has given great tacit authority to the military corporate-industrial complex forewarned by Pres. Eisenhower upon his exit from office. In the same article Commissiong writes: “Barack Obama has been more than willing to do the bidding for the Euro-American Empire, regardless the expense to humanity. He does it willingly. And unfortunately, many Black people in America continue to follow his march of destruction, willingly.....It is like they have thrown out much of the African legacy and made a mockery of our solidarity with other oppressed people throughout the globe.” One of the most psychologically disingenuous and damaging phenomenons of the Obama paradox are the constant, false associations between him and the great Black leaders of past generations: T-shirts and framed print posters, along with other baubles and trinkets, split between a pensive looking Obama and an equally deep in thought MLK or Malcolm X. Pan African unity is still the top priority for the global African Diaspora’s agenda, not the temporary starring role of puppet-in-chief. Decades ago Lani Guinier warned us against putting too much hope in Black electoral success: it rarely translates into real community empowerment. The reluctance on the part of politically active Blacks to criticize or even critique our current President's right leaning tendencies is because “firsts” are so important to the generation active during the late Crow-Civil Rights eras. The symbol trumps the substance, or lack thereof; as if occupying a nations presidency is a substantial trade off for centuries of global African subjugation. There is less concern with reversing the damaging effects of a four decades long war on drugs on Black youths than in preserving the false notion of a post racial society; less concern about the flight of living wage jobs from our cities, and more enthusiasm in maintaining the myth that Obama's election victories and attainment of the US presidency in some way meets the criteria as the fulfillment of MLKs vision. That would be the penultimate fallacy -- One man had a dream, the other has drones. Futher suggested reading: “How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages” http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-user-data “Anger Mounts after Facebook's 'shadow profiles' leak in bug” www.zdnet.com/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug-700017167/ “Obama's Destructive Foreign Policy and Black Disillusionment” www.yourworldnews.org and www.Black AgendaReport.com 10/9/2012, by Solomon Commissiong “7 Ways the Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization”, July 10, 2012 by Radley Balko writing for the HuffingtonPost. “Is Obama the Trojan Horse, a Psychopath, a Bad Boyfriend, or all Three?” Jill Dalton, September 20, 2012 in www.nationofchange.com “Why Obama Hearts Reagan: And what he's [Obama] learned from him [Reagan]” February 7th 2011 Time Magazine: www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20110207,00.html Time Magazine Cover story featuring photoshopped image of current President being cuddled by bigoted dead president.” “As Black President Barack Obama is a Bust”, by Dwight Hobbes, Minnesota-Spokesman Recorder, May 16, 2013 Rashard Zanders is a freelance writer based in the Midwest; 872-228-4179. Email contact pending: He is currently seeking alternatives to Gmail. Thoughts on another judicial travesty: Much has been written already, and more will be, about the judicial travesty that resulted in the stalking murderer of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. I am still trying to process it myself as once again my worst fears about America have been confirmed. But I did find an interesting quote on Alternet.org, which ran a piece entitled "Zimmerman Verdict Declares Open Season on Black Boys," by Gary Younge, July 14, 2013: "Appeals for calm in the wake of such a verdict raise the question of what calm there can possibly be in a place where such a verdict is possible." -- Something to think about. Ciao for now.

Chile revisited: TIME: Was the US involved?

Damn right they were, but they tried to blame my father (RIP) for spreading rumors we now know to be true.

My father's name appears in the fifth paragraph.

Labor Day '08: Martial Law St. Paul

Thought I'd share a few images from my walk around the capitol on Labor Day.
I was basically behind the group that got a massive volley of pepper and tear gases, rubber bullets and concussion grenades. The problem was this: After the march from the Capitol to the Republican(t) National Convention -- most of the marchers either began to head home or to a hip hop concert across the river via the Wabesha Bridge (Mos Def, Pharcyde, and Atmosphere played along with country acts Billy Bragg and Steve Earle) The concert location was at Harriet Island, which is a walk across the Wabesha Bridge. Basically, the 3, 500 plus officers, more than half of whom are contracted by the RNC from outside of MN, got upset and started opening up volleys, closing bridges, essentially funneling people into a confrontation of their making. And if you think I'm bullshitting tough because I saw this with my G'*&D#$*ed eyes. I also have 100 minutes of video that I took of the legally permitted and blessedly peaceful march, and my subsequent bike/walk towards the concert.

I hope everyone is having a great week,

Hit me up,

Your Boy,

raz