Angie Stone - Makings of You
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Old Men Drive Alone
Old men drive around town alone
nowhere to go no matter how hard they try
the Mercedes takes them nowhere
can't stop by this friend's house he's dead
this friend is crazy
can't stop and chat with him
this nigguh is a long gone alcoholic
can't fuck with him
you drunk yoself
Henny and Bailey's
a deadly combo
separating mind from body
but you go out anyway
for air
too lazy to walk the lake down the street
fuck the lake
would ride bike if tire was fixed
paid the negro for a tire but didn't fix it
what's wrong with the negro
what about three centruries of free labor
think the negro ain't tired in his DNA
in the marrow of bones tired
would you work with no memory of pay
or wage slavery in the modern era
slave none the less
no food stamps
no medical
no parity
no job security
just work
three minimum wage jobs
enjoy life
don't let those Cali negroes come south talking shit
fuck up yo shit wit da white man
then leave
you stuck wit white man
three minimum jobs
can't pay car note after Cali nigguh departed
wish dat nigguh said nothing
just shut the fuck up and leave us lone
we know how to deal wit our peckerwood
Cali ass nigguh
deal wit dat Cali peck
and dad NYC peck
stop and frist ass peck
got you nigguhs under occupation
but you NYC nigguhs all that and bag of chips
stopped on every block wit pants hanging down
got any drugs
on probation parole
got gun
warrants
go ahead nigguh
might as well stay in South Carolina
shut up and stay
lease you got a job
minimum wage but job
ain't got that in NYC.
So I drive alone
no friends to call
no women friends
they gone or crazy too
I drive slow
through the Tenderloin of SF
do I know you?
Nigguh you still on the street selling dope
must be a snitch nigguh
how many nigguhs you sent to prison to stay on the street
I'm scared of you nigguh
I drive I drive
I pray I pray
asking God to tell me why You saved me
Please tell me why.
Why you didn't take me down in the mud with these other rats?
Why you save me to drive around in my Mercedes alone?
--Marvin X
12/28/12
Fresno
nowhere to go no matter how hard they try
the Mercedes takes them nowhere
can't stop by this friend's house he's dead
this friend is crazy
can't stop and chat with him
this nigguh is a long gone alcoholic
can't fuck with him
you drunk yoself
Henny and Bailey's
a deadly combo
separating mind from body
but you go out anyway
for air
too lazy to walk the lake down the street
fuck the lake
would ride bike if tire was fixed
paid the negro for a tire but didn't fix it
what's wrong with the negro
what about three centruries of free labor
think the negro ain't tired in his DNA
in the marrow of bones tired
would you work with no memory of pay
or wage slavery in the modern era
slave none the less
no food stamps
no medical
no parity
no job security
just work
three minimum wage jobs
enjoy life
don't let those Cali negroes come south talking shit
fuck up yo shit wit da white man
then leave
you stuck wit white man
three minimum jobs
can't pay car note after Cali nigguh departed
wish dat nigguh said nothing
just shut the fuck up and leave us lone
we know how to deal wit our peckerwood
Cali ass nigguh
deal wit dat Cali peck
and dad NYC peck
stop and frist ass peck
got you nigguhs under occupation
but you NYC nigguhs all that and bag of chips
stopped on every block wit pants hanging down
got any drugs
on probation parole
got gun
warrants
go ahead nigguh
might as well stay in South Carolina
shut up and stay
lease you got a job
minimum wage but job
ain't got that in NYC.
So I drive alone
no friends to call
no women friends
they gone or crazy too
I drive slow
through the Tenderloin of SF
do I know you?
Nigguh you still on the street selling dope
must be a snitch nigguh
how many nigguhs you sent to prison to stay on the street
I'm scared of you nigguh
I drive I drive
I pray I pray
asking God to tell me why You saved me
Please tell me why.
Why you didn't take me down in the mud with these other rats?
Why you save me to drive around in my Mercedes alone?
--Marvin X
12/28/12
Fresno
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Marvin X Speaks in Fresno at the African American Museum
Marvin X spoke briefly in Fresno last night at the African American Museum's Kwanza ceremony. The
poet told of his early life in the Valley, struggle to teach at Fresno State University, his recent national book tour and the importance of North American Africans preserving their archives. He made the audience aware that two of Black America's greatest authors are from Fresno, himself, of course (audience laughter) and Sherley Ann Williams (RIP).
According to the museum's founder, Jack Kelly (RIP), "When Marvin X fought to teach at Fresno State College (now University), he made things better for everybody, not just students at FSU. Black police officers were not allowed to patrol the white side of town until Marvin X came to FSU."
He described racial conditions on his tour, especially in South Carolina where his advisors and host told him to say nothing, just enjoy Gullahland. But the poet said Upsouth was no better, especially in New York City where 700,000 young black and Puerto Rican men were stopped and frisked last year. NYC is under police occupation, especially the hood, so America is essentially a police state controlled by pigs and fear. The Kwanza event ended with his talk. People said they were inspired by his remarks.
The poet was invited by Pamela Young, President of the Fresno chapter of the NAACP. Arrangements are being made by Museum Director Gregory Melancon to have the poet return during Black History Month.
Marvin X is available for speaking nationwide. Contact him at 510-200-4164 or his agent, Sun in Leo PR 718-496-2305, email: prgirl@suninleo.com.
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Navigating the Perilous Mental Landscape
Navigating the perilous Mental Landscape
Like the earthquake in Japan, man too is in mental motion, a mind quake of the most devastating degree that is rocking his mental equilibrium to the core!
We must be aware of the times and what must be done. A blind man named Ray Charles told us "the world is in an uproar, the danger zone is everywhere...." And so it is, ancestor Ray, there is turbulence in the land and in man, woman and children. As the earth enters another 25,000 year cycle of history with the coming New Age of high spiritual consciousness, there are many who remain deaf, dumb and blind to present and future events, even though the news is full of rapidly changing events in the global village. One would need to be in worse shape than Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder not to see the earth is in transformation, even Nature itself. The ice is melting, the sea rising, the forests burning, earthquakes and tsunamis , drought, famine, pestilence, in diverse places, just as Jesus predicted.
Apparently, many do not believe what Jesus said even when they see events he predicted before their very eyes, on the news, Twitter, Facebook, Cable TV and elsewhere. He said mother would be against child and child against mother and father. Did he not say brother would be against brother and sister against sister? And do we not see this in our social relations today.
It is crystal clear to me we are in times in which a friend is no longer a friend, a wife and husband no longer wife and husband. There is no love between them. Husbands and wives say the horrible things to each other. Daughters and sons say the most wretched things to their parents, often when the parents are helping them.
But when the danger zone is everywhere, no one, no relationships are exempt from the turmoil sweeping the old order out and ushering in the New Era. But there is an almost organic relationship between the earth quaking and the minds of men, women and children becoming totally unbalanced. In this time of radical change of Nature and man, those with no understanding shall become unglued, losing their fragile mental equilibrium or simply tripping out. Ultimately, they become a danger to themselves and others and must be committed, for they are not the person we knew only yesterday. Today they are a total stranger who does not know us, cannot even recognize us, yet we have known them since childhood. They could be a sibling yet they do not act like there is any blood relationship between us. We behave like total strangers.
It could be parent/child relationships that come to such a low point children will sue parents or visa versa. In short the love is gone. Amiri Baraka tells us in his play A Black Mass, "Where the souls print should be there is only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits...."
As we walk the streets be very careful what you say to people, for they are on edge, on the precipice, ready to strike out at the slightest perceived negative incident, or wrong word uttered.
Yes, they are ready to kill, so be aware as you make your daily round.
The political/economic atmosphere is charged with venom, but it is misplaced aggression, for no one is going after the bankers, the loan sharks, the Wall Street financiers who were casino gamblers with the wealth of the people, stealing 13 trillion dollars in the sub prime housing scam.
And yet hardly a banker is in jail, meanwhile 2.4 million mostly poor are incarcerated for petty crimes, additionally they suffer drug abuse and mental illness, not to mention lack of proper legal representation at the time of their trials. The only white man doing time is the one who stole from the rich, not the poor. Those who robbed the poor are yet receiving multimillion dollar bonuses while 30 million workers are unemployed and millions are now homeless.
It is this atmosphere that is so unsettling to the mental state of those who were already suffering stress from the general hostile environment, from bad food, the media dispensing
information from the world of make believe and promoting the addiction to white supremacy conspicuous consumption
How do we move from problem to solution, from addiction to recovery, from sickness to healing?
The Buddhists says knowledge plus the right action. We must first understand the time and what must be done. These are perilous times, very dangerous, thus one must tip through the tulips, through the mind fields that lay before us, behind us, to the right and to the left.
We must practice eternal vigilance and stay on guard against being deceived. There are those who wish to deceive us so that we remain victims of the slave system. They will not tell us all the institutions are exhausted, political, economic, educational, religious, marital. None of these shall continue with business as usual. They must and shall undergo radical structural change, if not simply thrown into the dustbin of history where they belonged long ago.
Those not prepared for radical change shall be blown by the wayside where they shall inhabit the lower realms of an animal existence until they die or recover from savagery and come into the era of civility and spirituality beyond religiosity.
Those who are a danger to themselves and others will need to be confined to a program of long term recovery, a rehabilitation of their disgusting habits, namely greed, ego, pride, lust, arrogance, and other deadly sins, and most importantly the inability to practice freedom, justice and equality, constitutionally unable to share the wealth and practice democracy or the consent of the governed.
The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end, or rather what goes around comes around. What we are witnessing and experiencing is not linear time but circular, for we shall continue, but only those who are able to jump out of the box of the old structures into the new.
The fearless ones, they shall be successful. Those not motivated by the illusions of the monkey mind shall be successful. We pray for the others who persist in their inordinancy, blindly wandering on, as the Qur'an says.
--Marvin X
4/7/11
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Marvin X Speaks on the Transition of Poet Jayne Cortez
Greetings, Marvin---
Thank you again for sharing your creative remarks regarding Jayne Cortez. The show will air from 4pm - 6pm tomorrow on KPOO, 89.5FM, San Francisco/www.kpoo.com.
Hope you get to listen. either way, I will forward you a copy tomorrow night. Merry New Year! No justice, no peace...
--
--
Safi wa Nairobi
KPFA Radio, 94.1FM
1929 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way
Berkeley 94704 CA
510.848.6767, ext. 647 (station)
510.444.7226 (personal)
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Governor Pardons Wilmington 10, Free at Last!
North Carolina governor pardons Wilmington 10
12/31/2012
The Rev. Benjamin Chavis gives a clenched fist salute on December
14, 1979, after being paroled by then-North Carolina governor Jim
Hunt. Chavis, one of the Wilmington 10 defendants, was pardoned
on Monday by North Carolina’s current governor, Bev Perdue, in
connection with the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, N.C.
grocery. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)
14, 1979, after being paroled by then-North Carolina governor Jim
Hunt. Chavis, one of the Wilmington 10 defendants, was pardoned
on Monday by North Carolina’s current governor, Bev Perdue, in
connection with the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, N.C.
grocery. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)
The Wilmington Ten are truly free, at last.
Outgoing North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue issued and signed a “pardon of innocence” for the group Monday. There are currently six surviving members.
The nine African-American men and one white woman had been convicted in the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, NC grocery store during civil-rights protests that arose after police shot an African-American teenager. Between the ten, they received combined sentences totaling 282 years in prison.
In the statement released from her office this afternoon, Governor Perdue, a Democrat, said that she “decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained.” That manner wasoutlined on our show Saturday by host Melissa Harris-Perry, who added her voice to the more than 130,000 who signed their names to petitions delivered to the governor’s office:
“…it was so overt that by 1977, at least three witnesses had recanted their testimony. And in 1980, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Wilmington Ten—noting that the chief witness lied on the stand and that prosecutors concealed evidence.And now, according to the NAACP, newly discovered notes from the prosecutor suggest he racially-profiled prospective jurors—writing ‘KKK —good’ next to some names and referring to at least one black candidate as an ‘Uncle Tom.’”
Governor Perdue used similarly strong language in her statement about the injustices done in the trial:
This conduct is disgraceful. It is utterly incompatible with basic notions of fairness and with every ideal that North Carolina holds dear. The legitimacy of our criminal justice system hinges on it operating in a fair and equitable manner with justice being dispensed based on innocence or guilt – not based on race or other forms of prejudice. That did not happen here. Instead, these convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer.
Wilmington Ten member Wayne Moore, who was 19 at the time of the firebombing and received a nearly 30-year prison sentence, shouted his joy at the governor’s decision via Twitter:
----------------------NC governor signs pardons for Wilmington 10
The Wilimington 10 back in 1972.
WBOY-TV
updated 12/31/2012
By MARTHA WAGGONER
--Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued pardons Monday to the Wilmington 10, a group wrongly convicted 40 years ago in a notorious Civil Rights-era prosecution that led to accusations that the state was holding political prisoners.
Perdue issued pardons of innocence Monday for the nine black men and one white woman who received prison sentences totaling nearly 300 years for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store during three days of violence that included the shooting of a black teenager by police.
The pardon means the state no longer thinks the 10 - four of whom have since died - committed a crime.
"I have decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained," Perdue said in a news release Monday.
The three key witnesses in the case later recanted their testimony. Amnesty International and other groups took up the issue, portraying the Wilmington 10 as political prisoners.
In 1978, then-Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences but withheld a pardon. Two years later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the convictions, saying perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the verdicts. Advertise AdChoices
"We are tremendously grateful to Gov. Perdue for her courage," said Benjamin Chavis, the former national NAACP executive director who was in jail and prison for about five years before his release. "This is a historic day for North Carolina and the United States. People should be innocent until proven guilty, not persecuted for standing up for equal rights and justice."
In addition to Chavis, the surviving members of the Wilmington 10 are Reginald Epps, James McKoy, Wayne Moore, Marvin Patrick and Willie Earl Vereen. Those who have died are Jerry Jacobs, Ann Shepard, Connie Tindall and Joe Wright.
The bombing of the white-owned Mike's Grocery occurred less than three years after the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Schools in Wilmington and New Hanover County hadn't desegregated, and black students began a boycott.
The United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, for whom Chavis worked, sent him to Wilmington to advise the students. On Feb. 6, 1971, the white-owned Mike's Grocery was firebombed, and police killed a black teenager that night. A day later, a white man was shot and killed.
The National Guard then moved in to end the violence.
Wilmington 10 survivors and family today.
The Wilmington 10 were convicted in October 1972 on charges of conspiracy to firebomb Mike's Grocery and conspiracy to assault emergency personnel who responded to the fire.
The trial was held in Burgaw in Pender County after a judge declared a mistrial the first time. A jury of 10 blacks and two whites had been seated in the first trial when prosecutor Jay Stroud said he was sick, and the judge declared the mistrial. At the second trial, a jury of 10 whites and two blacks was seated.
The three key witnesses who took the stand for the prosecution recanted their testimony in 1976. And the prosecutor, Stroud, became a flashpoint for the Wilmington 10 supporters.
In November, NAACP state leaders said they believe newly uncovered notes show Stroud tried to keep blacks off the first jury and seat whites he thought were sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.
They showed the notes on a poster board, saying the handwriting on the legal paper appeared to match notes from other prosecution records in the case.
At the top of the list of 100 jurors, the notes said, "stay away from black men." A capital "B'' was beside the names of black jurors. The notes identify one potential black juror as an "Uncle Tom type," and beside the names of several white people, notations include "KKK?" and "good!!"
"This conduct is disgraceful," Perdue said. "It is utterly incompatible with basic notions of fairness and with every ideal that North Carolina holds dear. The legitimacy of our criminal justice system hinges on it operating in a fair and equitable manner with justice being dispensed based on innocence or guilt - not based on race or other forms of prejudice." Advertise AdChoices
Stroud told the StarNews of Wilmington that he wrote some of the notes but declined to confirm that to the AP in November. On Monday, he told the AP that he wouldn't have written "stay away from black men," and said someone could have forged the notes.
The N.C. State Bar lists Stroud as a former defense attorney whose status is inactive at his request. Stroud has been arrested more than a dozen times in the past six years, and his son told The Gaston Gazette in 2011 that his father suffers with bipolar disease and that he was diagnosed about the same time he graduated from law school.
"I think she has made a mistake," Stroud said of Perdue on Monday. "The case was prosecuted fairly, and the jury reached a unanimous verdict fairly quickly after a six-week trial. And they found all 10 defendants unanimously guilty of all charges. And I think her decision is flying in the face of the jury's verdict."
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Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker in Raleigh contributed to this story.
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Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc
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New Year's Day in the American Slave System
But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.
On the 2d, the slaves are expected to go to their new masters. On a farm, they work until the corn and cotton are laid. They then have two holidays. Some masters give them a good dinner under the trees. This over, they work until Christmas eve. If no heavy charges are meantime brought against them, they are given four or five holidays, whichever the master or overseer may think proper. Then comes New Year's eve; and they gather together their little alls, or more properly speaking, their little nothings, and wait anxiously for the dawning of day. At the appointed hour the grounds are thronged with men, women, and children, waiting, like criminals, to hear their doom pronounced. The slave is sure to know who is the most humane, or cruel master, within forty miles of him. It is easy to find out, on that day, who clothes and feeds his slaves well; for he is surrounded by a crowd, begging, "Please, massa, hire me this year. I will work very hard, massa." If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year. Should he chance to change his mind, thinking it justifiable to violate an extortedpromise, woe unto him if he is caught! The whip is used till the blood flows at his feet; and his stiffened limbs are put in chains, to be dragged in the field for days and days! If he lives until the next year, perhaps the same man will hire him again, without even giving him an opportunity of going to the hiring-ground. After those for hire are disposed of, those for sale are called up. O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year's day with that of the poor bond-woman! With you it is a pleasant season, and the light of the day is blessed. Friendly wishes meet you every where, and gifts are showered upon you. Even hearts that have been estranged from you soften at this season, and lips that have been silent echo back, "I wish you a happy New Year." Children bring their little offerings, and raise their rosy lips for a caress. They are your own, and no hand but that of death can take them from you. But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies. On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met that mother in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day in my mind. She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, "Gone! all gone! Why don't God kill me?" I had no words wherewith to comfort her. Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence. Slaveholders have a method, peculiar to their institution, of getting rid of old slaves, whose lives have been worn out in their service. I knew an old woman, who for seventy years faithfully served her master. She had become almost helpless, from hard labor and disease. Her owners moved to Alabama, and the old black woman was left to be sold to any body who would give twenty dollars for her. |
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Afghanistan and Echoes of 1989
With U.S. Set to Leave Afghanistan, Echoes of 1989
By THOM SHANKER
Published: January 1, 2013
WASHINGTON — The young president who ascended to office as a change agent decides to end the costly and unpopular war in Afghanistan. He seeks an exit with honor by pledging long-term financial support to allies in Kabul, while urging reconciliation with the insurgency. But some senior advisers lobby for a deliberately slow withdrawal, and propose leaving thousands of troops behind to train and support Afghan security forces.
Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Soviet officers and soldiers near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1988. Troops would leave the next year.
This is a nearly exact description of the endgame conundrum facing President Obama as he prepares for a critical visit by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, planned for early January.
But the account is actually drawn from declassified Soviet archives describing Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s closed-door struggles with his Politburo and army chiefs to end the Kremlin’s intervention in Afghanistan — one that began with a commando raid, coup and modest goals during Christmas week of 1979 but became, after a decade, what Mr. Gorbachev derided as “a bleeding wound.”
What mostly is remembered about the withdrawal is the Soviet Union’s humiliation, and the ensuing factional bloodletting across Afghanistan that threw the country into a vicious civil war. It ended with Taliban control and the establishment of a safe haven for Al Qaeda before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
But scholars who have studied the Soviet archives point out another lesson for the Obama administration as it manages the pullout of American and allied combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
“The main thing the Soviets did right was that they continued large-scale military assistance to the regime they left behind after the final withdrawal in ’89,” said Mark N. Katz, a professor at George Mason University and author of “Leaving Without Losing: The War on Terror After Iraq and Afghanistan” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012).
“As long as the Afghan regime received the money and the weapons, they did pretty well — and held on to power for three years,” Mr. Katz said. The combat effectiveness of Kabul’s security forces increased after the Soviet withdrawal, when the fight for survival become wholly their own.
But then the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, and the new Russian leader, Boris N. Yeltsin, heeded urgings of the United States and other Western powers to halt aid to the Communist leadership in Afghanistan, not just arms and money, but also food and fuel. The Kremlin-backed government in Kabul fell three months later.
To be sure, there are significant contrasts between the two interventions in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion and occupation were condemned as illegal aggression, while the American one was embraced by the international community, including Russia, as a “just war,” one with limited goals of routing the Taliban and eliminating Al Qaeda. That war of necessity has since evolved into a war of choice, one the Obama administration is working to end as quickly as is feasible.
Despite the differences going in, both the Soviet Union and the United States soon learned that Afghanistan is a land where foreigners aspiring to create nations in their image must combat not just the Taliban but tribalism, orthodoxy, corruption and a medieval view of women. As well, Pakistan has had interests at odds with those of the neighboring government in Afghanistan, whether Kabul was an ally of Moscow or of Washington.
“The Soviet Union did not understand religious and ethnic factors sufficiently, and overestimated the capacity of Afghan society to move very fast toward a modern era, in this case socialism,” said Svetlana Savranskaya, director of Russian programs at the National Security Archive, an independent research center at George Washington University.
“Here I see similarities with the approach of the United States, especially with all the discussion about trying to leave behind an Afghanistan that is democratic and respects the rights of women, ideas that simply are not accepted across the broad society there,” said Ms. Savranskaya, who has written extensively on the Soviet archives.
If the Soviet experience offers any guidance to the current American withdrawal, she said, it would be to accelerate the departure of foreign combat forces — but to leave in their place a “sustained, multiyear international involvement in military training, education and civilian infrastructure projects, and maybe not focusing on building democracy as much as improving the lives of the common people.”
And she noted that the United States should already be seeking partnership with Afghan leaders beyond Mr. Karzai, who is viewed across large parts of the population as tainted by his association with the Americans.
Pentagon officials have signaled that they are hoping for an enduring military presence of 10,000 or more troops, but may have to accept fewer, to cement the progress of the years of fighting. Those troops would focus on training and supporting Afghan forces along with a counterterrorism contingent to hunt Qaeda and insurgent leaders.
In a parallel, one of Mr. Gorbachev’s closest early confidants, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the foreign minister, advocated a slow withdrawal pace — and pressed for 10,000 to 15,000 Soviet troops to remain to support the Communist government. The Soviets left only 300 advisers.
But after losing more than 15,000 Soviet troops and billions of rubles, the Kremlin knew it had to somehow justify the invasion and occupation upon withdrawal.
Mr. Gorbachev had “to face up to a difficult problem of domestic politics which has puzzled other nations finding themselves in similar circumstances,” Rodric Braithwaite, a former British ambassador to Moscow, wrote in “Afgantsy” (Oxford University Press, 2011), his book on the Soviet intervention based on Communist Party documents.
“How could the Russians withdraw their army safely, with honor, without looking as if they were simply cutting and running, and without appearing to betray their Afghan allies or their own soldiers who had died?” Mr. Braithwaite wrote of the internal Kremlin debate, in terms resonant of the Americans’ conundrum today.
Around the time of the Soviet withdrawal, an article by Pravda, the Communist Party mouthpiece, clutched for a positive view as the Soviet Army pulled out. Read today, it bears a resemblance to the news releases churned out by the Pentagon detailing statistics on reconstruction assistance.
“Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan repaired, rebuilt and constructed hundreds of schools, technical colleges, over 30 hospitals and a similar number of nursery schools, some 400 apartment buildings and 35 mosques,” the article said. “They sank dozens of wells and dug nearly 150 kilometers of irrigation ditches and canals. They were also engaged in guarding military and civilian installations in trouble.”
The Kremlin had learned that its armies could not capture political success, but Soviet commanders made the same claims upon withdrawal that are heard from NATO officers today: not a single battlefield engagement was lost to guerrillas, and no outpost ever fell to insurgents.
That understanding seemed to animate Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta as he toured Afghanistan recently in a traditional holiday visit with the troops.
At each stop, Mr. Panetta acknowledged that significant challenges remain to an orderly withdrawal and a stable postwar Afghanistan, and not just the resilient insurgency.
He cited unreliable Afghan governance, continuing corruption and the existence of insurgent safe havens in Pakistan. None of those are likely to be fixed with American firepower
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AALBC.com Newsletter
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In the name of love, a poem for Fresno
photo Ken Johnson
This is my land.
I own this land in the name of love
land of my ancestors
land of nat turner
land of sojourner truth
land of harriet tubman
I claim all of it
every inch of it
in the name of love
I claim the corn the peppers the almonds the peas
the raisins the cotton I claim
in the name of love
in the valley heat love is on the vines
hot love in the valley of my love
hot dripping love
I am the the vines the grapes
in the name of love
I return to the corn
there is love in the corn
all the valley is my love
the orchards the cows horses
I am this I am this love....
--Marvin X
from In the Name of Love, In the Land of My Daughters, Black Bird Press, 2005
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The Fresno Poems: "Secret Life of a Poet"
photo Ken Johnson
Secret Life of a Poet
Sometimes he claimed city
of it loved it
energy diversity creativity
but in the DNA of his mind
fields of cotton grape vines
![]()
cow patches orchards
in rivers of his mind
creeks ditches canals
was pleased riding AmTrak down valley
Tracy Modesto Turlock Merced Chowchilla Madera
highway 99
Fresno summers
Grandma's hands
don't let me have to give you a backhand slap boy!
mosquitoes
distant whistle freight train
crickets
devouring watermelons late night
D.D. brought from El Centro
ole cousin D.D.
walking hard in half Wellingtons
talking shit
James Earl Jones voice
classic truck driver
ever on the road
D.D. my dirt hero
cow dung man
chicken shit man
midnight sun man
110 degrees at 1am
Valley of death fog
let governor have ten car accident
just a country boy
lemons off treesturn on well water at night
irrigate rows Mama said
don't be lazy boy
wouldn't have you for a man
you don't need no wife
you need maid secretary mistress
Mama knows best
Brother Tommy don't want eggs from chicken coop
wants eggs from Safeway
he Safeway ass nigguh
somewhere playing safe right now
me country boy
learned city blues.
from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1995.
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Dear Marvin X, A poem for my teacher
Dear Marvin X
It is 2013
the fire is low
and knowing has never been needed more
me need knowing like a dope fiend need a hit
but a dope fiend is dedicated
we just in the dark
wont reach for the light
wont reach
just down here on the ground
needing to know
you know
you tell
you cant be quiet you know so much
are you tired because we still refuse to know
is the knowing heavy
does it hurt to be the smartest
nigger in the room
here with us with a flash light
and that damn tireless pen
but still you cant get
us home
you think we too far gone?
you agree with your mother yet?
living gets lonely
niggers die
niggers wont know
niggers go crazy
niggers wont know
niggers drink henny & baileys and drive alone
running from knowing
that niggers got to know
so I pray for old men
who drive alone
and the wonder of them
here
knowing
--Ayodele Nzinga, Ph.D.
Ayodele is Marvin X's top student, having worked with him since 1981 when she directed his play In the Name of Love when he taught drama at Oakland's Laney College. In 1998 she joined his Recovery Theatre and directed his play One Day in the Life, also performed in the drama that is known as the longest running African American drama in northern California. Ayodele now has her own theatre, the Lower Bottom Playaz in West Oakland.
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Job for Media Relations Manager
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The Fresno Poems: "Date with my Son"
Again the vines orchards
Amtrak to the valley
hesitation fear
the love the hate
return to old battlefield for righteousness justice
battle I didn't need to fight
death of warriors who battled beside me
Pat and Barbara, mothers who blessed me
disciplined children
never raised my voice with them, ever
never whipped them
wives now gone from my life
girlfriends growing fat like myself
insane from valley heat
again the vines orchards
coming winter
my sick son
calls me to valley
Nadar Ali my "fish" for the NOI takes me
to find my son
he is not home
strange signs in window
jesus and others
Later I taxi back to find him with candle burning
blows out candle
we go to motel
talk all night
surprised at his sanity
talks of Fulbright days in Egypt and Damascus
Syrian secret police question him five times daily
was he a prayer rug
visits American embassy
was he spy for the devil
did CIA take his mind
was he Manchurian Candidate
do not take his mad rantings serious
have a sense of humor he says
bear with him he pleads to all who love him
we all love him
we know the power of his mind
refuses help from my doctor friends
they're sick too he says
they need to help nigguhs in the Bay
I listen learn
he drifts from sanity to insanity
night turns day
he lay beside me
my 35 year old baby boy
snoring beyond loud
I dream of someone snoring
he is up again
ranting into the sunrise
the Syrians interrogate him
one smokes a cigar
looking like Saddam Hussain
what did he do at the American embassy
why is he studying books about Syria
what does he think of President Hafez Asad
Does he support the views of the Baath Party
Why is he hanging around those filthy Palestinians
It's morning now. He wants to go home
Wants money for child support I missed 35 years ago
He wants trust fund
If I leave him one he will seek healing
he promises
for security he packs stack of my books and CDs to sell
promises not to give me any money from the sales
will keep it all
calls me bitch
more properly bee-ach
says I taught him to talk like this
I say we must stay on father-son plane
not brother/brother
he laughs
says shut up beech
we embrace
he exits
I love him
I know he loves me
yes, even in his insanity.
--Marvin X
10/29/99
from Land of My Daughters, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2005.
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Black Bird Press News and Review
Black Bird Press News & Review |
- Afghanistan and Echoes of 1989
- New Year's Day in the American Slave System
- Governor Pardons Wilmington 10, Free at Last!
- Marvin X Speaks on the Transition of Poet Jayne Cortez
- Navigating the Perilous Mental Landscape
- Marvin X Speaks in Fresno at the African American Museum
- Old Men Drive Alone
- Angie Stone - Makings of You
- Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X's Great Grandfather, Former Slave
- For Jayne Cortez in Memoriam
- Jayne Cortez In Memoriam
- Carl Dix on the American Revolution 2013
- Poet Jayne Cortez Joins Ancestors
- Ishmael Reed on Guns, Race and Marvin X on Who Asks the Negro
- America/China Invades Africa
- Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinue Achebe on the Psycholinguistic Crisis of the African
- Black Bird Press News & Review: Alik Shahadah on the Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African
- Black Bird Press News & Review: Invite Marvin X for Black History Month 2013
- Black Bird Press News & Review: The Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African
- Marvin X Returns to the Source: Fresno, California
- Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African--Original Essay by Marvin X
- Dr. Hare on the Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African
- OAKLAND'S MENTORING MOVEMENT MIXER
- In the Crazy House Called America--The Grand Denial
- What I want for Xmas
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The Fresno Poems: "Two Poets in the Park"
For Sherley Ann Williams
Aug 25, 1944--July 6, 1999
We sat in Central Park, NYC winter '97
70 degrees in February
we met the night before after 17 years of silence
high school lovers should always be friends
memory of precious times
what a blessing sitting in Central Park
talk of family friends poets poems
you know Ntozake was
Baraka has
Skip Gates got a
about us nothing
we didn't go there
after 17 years of silence
we sat still
II
My homegirl from the hood Fresno
projects cotton grape fields
Fink White playground
Columbia Elementary
Edison High
drama club honor society
full of passion with her love
screaming scratching
aborted child at my request
to my eternal regret
Mama said that's the girl you ought to marry
she's smart!
she never married
was blue about this
said a bad relationship was better than no relationship
poet
critic
novelist
professor
nobody better
two poets in the park
now there is only one
peace my sister my darling.
--Marvin X
7/15/99
from Land of My Daughters, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2005.
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The Fresno Poems: "Mama's Love"
photo Ken Johnson
love
each other
love
everyone
no matter
what color
love
brothers
sisters
love
Mama taught
Her Christian Science made us know "the truth"
truth is
ain't no love like Mama's love
Nietzsche said Mother Love turns to smother love
so we suffocated
Mama drowned us in her love
all in our bizness
especially her six daughters
classic matriarch
I don't like none of them nigguhs you girls wit
ain't none of them nigguhs shit
Mama
keep out of other people's business
no way jose
love was her business
then Mama died
all the love she tried
to build between us siblings
crumbled
so much crust of bread
dust
sand
love became hate
or was it hate all the time
just waiting for Mama to leave room
so we could call each other dirty hoes
bitches
punk motherfuckers
ass holes.
Did we love
for love
or love for Mama
love is eternal
Mama ephemeral
we loved for Mama
Mama alone
so loved turned to hate
hate to violence
violence to silence
we don't talk
don't call
don't write
meet at funerals only
if then.
and don't talk then
avoid the eyes
revealing truth we want so hard
to deny
that
in fact
in deed
we do
love.
from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 1995.
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The Fresno Poems: "I Will Go into the City"
The following poem will resound as long and as deeply as any love poem ever written by anyone: Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonja Sanchez, Maya et al.
--Fahizah Alim
--Fahizah Alim
I Will Go into the City
for S.J.
I will go into the city
I will find work
I will find work
I will remember you, country woman
I will not forget you
Your laugh, your arguments
In order to learn
It is your way, let it be
How can I forget your lips
Your enchanting smile
I will not forget
The night we walked in the rain
Because it was free and we were free
For once we agree
The best of life is free
I will go into the city
I will find work
But you will be with me, country woman
When those city woman come to devour me
With their sweet perfume
You will be there
Your spirit will protect me
I will never forget
How we sipped $1.00 margaritas
In the Mexican café in Chinatown
Our ride to the lake
Our picnic on the hill
The ranger spotted us with his binoculars
We did not care
We were filled
With the holy spirit of love
How can I forget
Hours in bed
We became children
Of the love spirit
Days, nights, mornings
Became one moment
Man and woman became one
Discovered their missing self
Eternal self
Self of love
Self of joy
Self of happiness realized
I will go into the city
I will find work
I will not forget you, country woman
I will return to claim you
In the name of love
I will claim you
Because you are woman
I will claim you
Because you are feeling and spirit
I will claim you
Because you are mind and beauty
I will claim you
Because you have given yourself to me so totally
I will claim you
In the name of Allah
I will claim you
For the glory of Allah
I will claim you.
--Marvin X
From Selected Poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1979.
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The Fresno Poems: "She So Sweet When She Sleep"
Marvin Xphoto Kamau Amen Ra
for PY
She so sweet when she sleep
love looking at her
covers over head
won't let me in bed
except to put her to sleep
then
got to leave
sleep on couch
baby can grouch
if she don't get her sleep
insomnia nervous workaholic
trying to get it for self
miss independent
like ain't we all
but let her sleep
a terror awake
madness
I can't take
but our moment of tenderness
tongue on breasts
down her valley of the Nile
she works me too
yeah
so sweet
let baby sleep
let baby sleep
so sweet
so sweet.
--Marvin X
1/4/95
from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1995.
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Insider Attacks Shape Afghan War
Insider Attacks in Afghanistan Shape the Late Stages of a War
Video Image via Site Monitoring Service
Mahmood is shown being welcomed by the Taliban after he opened fire on American trainers in Kunar Province.
The soldier, named simply Mahmood, 22, said that in May he told the insurgents of his plan to shoot Americans the next time they visited the outpost where he was based in northeastern Afghanistan. He asked the Taliban to take him in if he escaped.
The Taliban veterans he contacted were skeptical. Despite their public insistence that they employ vast ranks of infiltrators within the Afghan Army and the police, they acknowledged that many of the insider attacks they take credit for start as offers by angry young men like Mahmood. They had seen many fail, or lose their nerve before even starting, and they figured that Mahmood, too, would prove more talk than action or would die in the attempt.
“Even the Taliban didn’t think I would be able to do this,” Mr. Mahmood said in an interview.
He proved them wrong days later, on the morning of May 11, when he opened fire on American trainers who had gone to the outpost in the mountains of Kunar Province. One American was killed and two others were wounded. Mahmood escaped in the ensuing confusion, and he remains free in Kunar after the Taliban welcomed him into their ranks.
It was, he said, his “proudest day.”
Such insider attacks, by Afghan security forces on their Western allies, became “the signature violence of 2012,” in the words of one former American official. The surge in attacks has provided the clearest sign yet that Afghan resentment of foreigners is becoming unmanageable, and American officials have expressed worries about its disruptive effects on the training mission that is the core of the American withdrawal plan for 2014.
“It’s a game changer on all levels,” said First Sgt. Joseph Hissong, an American whohelped fight off an insider attack by Afghan soldiers that left two men in his unit dead.
Cultural clashes have contributed to some of the insider attacks, with Afghan soldiers and police officers becoming enraged by what they see as rude and abusive behavior by Americans close to them. In some cases, the abusive or corrupt behavior of Afghan officers prompts the killer to go after Americans, who are seen as backing the local commanders. On rare occasions, like the killing of an American contractor by an Afghan policewomanlate last month, there seems to be no logical explanation.
But behind it all, many senior coalition and Afghan officials are now concluding that after nearly 12 years of war, the view of foreigners held by many Afghans has come to mirror that of the Taliban. Hope has turned into hatred, and some will find a reason to act on those feelings.
“A great percentage of the insider attacks have the enemy narrative — the narrative that the infidels have to be driven out — somewhere inside of them, but they aren’t directed by the enemy,” said a senior coalition officer, who asked not to be identified because of Afghan and American sensitivities about the attacks.
The result is that, although the Taliban have successfully infiltrated the security forces before, they do not always have to. Soldiers and police officers will instead go to them, as was the case with Mr. Mahmood, who offered a glimpse of the thinking behind the violence in one of the few interviews conducted with Afghans who have committed insider attacks.
“I have intimate friends in the army who have the same opinion as I do,” Mr. Mahmood said. “We used to sit and share our hearts’ tales.”
But he said he did not tell any of his compatriots of his plan to shoot Americans, fearing that it could leak out and derail his attack. The interviews with Mr. Mahmood and his Taliban contacts were conducted in recent weeks by telephone and through written responses to questions. There are also two videos that show Mr. Mahmood with the Taliban: an insurgent-produced propaganda video available on jihadi Web sites, and an interview conducted by a local journalist in Kunar.
Though Mr. Mahmood at times contradicted himself, falling into stock Taliban commentary about how it had always been his ambition to kill foreigners, much of what he said mirrored the timelines and versions of events provided by Taliban fighters who know him, as well as Afghan officials familiar with his case.
Mr. Mahmood grew up in Tajikan, a small village in the southern province of Helmand. The area around his village remains dominated by the Taliban despite advances against the insurgents made in recent years by American and British troops. Even Afghans from other parts of Helmand are hesitant to
travel to Tajikan for fear of the Taliban.
Col. Khudaidad, an Afghan officer who runs the Afghan National Army’s recruitment center in Helmand, said Mr. Mahmood enlisted about four years ago. His story, up to that point, would be familiar to many Americans: He was a poor boy from a family of eight who worked sweeping up in a tailor shop and was looking for a better life. The army offered steady pay, reading and writing lessons, and a chance to see something beyond the mud hovels in which he was born and raised.
“He barely had a beard,” recalled Colonel Khudaidad, who also uses only one name, in an interview. “He looked so innocent that you wouldn’t believe what he did if you only saw him then.”
Mr. Mahmood says he was anything but an innocent. He grew up being told that Americans, Britons and Jews “are the enemies of our country and our religion,” he said.
But until May, he worked and fought alongside foreigners without incident. The change came in the Ghaziabad District of Kunar, where he ended up after the start of 2012, he said.
The area is thick with Taliban, along with Islamists from Pakistan. Many residents sympathized with the insurgents and often complained to Afghan soldiers about the abuses committed by Americans and the failure of Afghan soldiers to control much of anything beyond the perimeter of their own outpost, Mr. Mahmood said. The Taliban, they glorified.
Listening to villagers, Mr. Mahmood became convinced that the foreigners had killed too many Afghans and insulted the Prophet Muhammad too many times. He wanted to be driving them out, not helping them stay. The villagers’ stories “strengthened my desire to kill Americans with my own fingers,” he said.
He contacted the Taliban through a local sympathizer. He did not want help — he only asked the insurgents “not to shoot me” if he managed to escape after attacking the Americans, which he told them would happen in a few days.
He was on guard duty when American soldiers arrived at the outpost on May 11. He waited for a few of them to shed their body armor and put down their weapons, and then he opened fire. (New regulations require American trainers to keep their armor on and weapons at hand when visiting Afghan bases.)
The Afghan and American soldiers initially thought the attack was coming from the outside. They “didn’t even think that someone within the Afghan Army might have opened fire on Americans,” he said. “I took advantage of this confusion and fled.”
He claimed to have hit six Americans. “I don’t know how many were killed, though I hope all were,” he said. The coalition said one soldier was killed and two were wounded.
The Taliban welcomed him as a hero. He was given the title “ghazi,” an honorific for someone who helps drive off non-Muslim invaders. “They let me keep the same rifle I used to kill Americans.”
In August, the Taliban featured Mr. Mahmood in a propaganda video, calling him “Ghazi of Ghaziabad.” The video shows Mr. Mahmood, smiling broadly, being draped with garlands and showered with praise from local elders, Taliban fighters and cheering crowds of men and boys.
The following month, the American-led military coalition announced that it had killed Mr. Mahmood in an airstrike. The coalition now says it was mistaken and that Mr. Mahmood is still with the Taliban in Kunar.
Villagers and officials in Helmand backed up that account, saying Mr. Mahmood had been in touch with relatives since the report of his death. Mr. Mahmood said he spoke only to his mother, and that “she was happy.”
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More Pages to Explore .....
