Why won't the GOP compete for African American votes?

"In many ways, it's a shame that African Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. " ~Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

This article is a prime example of why Black voters will not advance in the US if they only vote...or put their eggs in one basket a.k.a the Democratic party. What major improvements has African Americans experienced lately? Has the number of Blacks in prison decrease nationally? Probably not and that is due to the fact that our political leaders also have their own agenda that they want to accomplish.

Back on the Blog

This blog has been on hiatus for over a year as the members of the the network has been involved in community projects across the country. We have decided to get back into the political arena to be a resource for Blacks who want to participate in the Independent movement. The writers of this blog are moderates (socially liberal, fiscally conservative), however, we want Black independent voters from all political spectrums to share their opinions and provide feedback on what we can do to ensure the political process truly represents the best of America.

We also want to be a resource for other races who want to recurit Black voters in the Independent movement. We understand that cultural and regional challenges are roadblocks to bring people of color in this movemnent. However, communication and the willingess to respect each other are the keys to get the United States of America back on track and continue to be a leader in this world.

We invite you to participate in this blog and be part of history. Please contact us by leaving a comment and someone will contact you on how to move forward.

Criticism of President Obama by Blacks - should we?

The opinion article in USA Today (7/21/2009) focuses on one of the core reasons why this blog exist. The lack of knowledge Black voters have about the "two-party" system structure and how it keeps them from being self-reliant.

Yes, we need to express criticism of President Obama. We also need to hear criticism about who and what we do as a race that is not benefiting the people and that is...and continues...to hurt Blacks. We cannot continue to say that 'white folks will not us get ahead' because we are responsible for what happens in our lives.

We need to view him as America's CEO and remember that our tax dollars pay his salary. When he was elected to office, he was chosen based on what he said during the campaign. Now it the time to put the words in to action, but he can only do so much because of Congress. At the same time, if his numbers in the polls continues to decline because Americans do not believe he is not doing his job effectively, he will not serve another term.

The majority that needs to be done requires Blacks to go out and do research on public affairs. The library has plenty of books on American Government and how it works. Only the educated Black voter will have the ability to empower others and see how the two-party system do not benefit Americans. In order for that to happen, the voter must educate people about current affairs in order to see their communities thrive and succeed.

Book: In The Balance of Power

In the Balance of Power — 2008
Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States
By Omar H. Ali

(The bloggers for the Network will provide a review by mid-August 2009)

18 Million Independents Vote for Barack Obama.

From IndependentVoting.org
November 2008

CUIP President Jackie Salit gives a post-election analysis of the independent movement and the 2008 presidential elections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbFe11Bh40M

Voters are starting to sway from hesitation over third-party candidates

Third-party candidates face several challenges in a two-party system
http://www.dailytitan.com/1.893636

McCain Winning Independents

By Deborah Creighton Skinner on September 9th
Politics
Black Enterprise

John McCain is still seeing a big bounce in the wake of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, according to a recent Gallup poll.

The GOP senator got a six percentage-point climb in voter support “explained by political independents shifting to him in fairly big numbers, from 40% pre-convention to 52% post-convention in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.”

“Clearly, he is moving on the independents,” Gallup Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport told the Washington Times of McCain.

The surge in independents who favor McCain marks the first time since Gallup began tracking voters’ general-election preferences in March that a majority of independents have sided with either of the two major-party candidates, according to Gallup.

That’s not all. After the Democratic National Convention and the RNC, McCain had a five-point lead over Obama Monday in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, putting the Arizona lawmaker at 49% to Obama’s 44%.

Deborah Creighton Skinner is the editorial director for BlackEnterprise.com.

Black Americans running for President of the United States

Barack Obama (Democratic Party)
Cynthia McKinney (Green Party)
Alan Keys (American Independent Party)

JESSE VENTURA 2012?

By Domenico Montanaro
MSNBC.com
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Ron Paul supporters may have found a new champion.

In boisterous remarks at today's Rally for the Republic, former Minnesota governor and professional wrestling personality Jesse Ventura suggested that he is open to a presidential run in 2012 if enthusiasm for "The Revolution" stays strong.

"If I see it over the next two to three years," thundered Ventura at the conclusion of a speech to several thousand Ron Paul supporters in the Target Center in Minneapolis. "If I see it start to rise up and if this country shows me that it's worth it for me, then maybe in 2012… ."

The crowd -- which has raucously booed allusions to this year's presidential candidates and cheered Paul's hands-off ideals at the all-day rally today -- burst into deafening applause at Ventura's suggestion.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/02/1328026.aspx

Ron Paul's counter-convention; Jesse Ventura takes over

The New York Times - Blog
September 2008

MINNEAPOLIS -- The crowd cheered at Rep. Ron Paul’s daylong counter-convention in Minneapolis. As many as 12,000 disillusioned Republicans and independents, according to organizers, had showed up at the Target Center, an NBA basketball arena, to cheer for the former Republican presidential candidate who raised so much money and so few delegates.
Paul told the crowd that he was told by Republican National Convention officials that he would need to be chaperoned if he showed up at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

But who wants to go to a boring old Republican convention that goes on and on for days in St. Paul when you can spend nine eternal hours indoors in Minneapolis listening to a host of conservative and libertarian speakers preach the virtues of the Republican congressman's libertarian-type politics?

But then came former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. He suggested that there may be a government conspiracy covering up what....

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/ron-paul-ventur.html

My Turn: Frustrations of a true independent voter

By Frederick Shute
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Publised in The Camp Verde Bugle

What does it mean to be an independent voter?To me it means to be able to vote for the best individuals I feel will represent my system of values and beliefs for the political offices they seek.The political platforms of both the Republican and Democratic parties represent to me the lesser of two evils - and I am not sure which is more degenerate. Both political parties are controlled by the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, banking and military industrial powers that essentially control everything. John McCain and Barack Obama answer to the same masters. Anyone who believes otherwise is a fool.

http://campverdebugleonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=73&ArticleID=20916

McCain taking different approach than Bush to pursue black voters

By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 04/22/08 07:18 PM [ET]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is making an appeal to black voters this week, but he has taken a different approach than President Bush did during his 2004 reelection campaign.

While Bush highlighted an amendment seeking to ban gay marriage and other social issues to court black voters, McCain is championing education and other populist ideas. Part of McCain’s strategy is to make the case that the Democrats’ tax plan will negatively affect citizens across the economic spectrum.

Rice hits U.S. 'birth defect'

March 28, 2008
By Nicholas Kralev

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that." "That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today," she said.

Obama's Platitudes vs. National Black Independent Political Party's 1980 Charter

40 Demands of Black Independent Party Still Haven't Been Met

New Voice for Independents

Suite talk: Finding a way
By: Aoife McCarthy
The POLITICO
October 8, 2007

Focusing on opening up the political system, Thomas D’Amore, Bill Hillsman, Laureen Oliver and Dean Barkley announced they have formed the independent political consultancy D’Amore, Hillsman, Oliver & Barkley. The firm will make it easier for independents to get on the ballot and then compete.

“Independents or candidates who want to challenge the system quickly find out that the electoral deck is stacked against them,” says Hillsman.

“Democrats or Republicans who wish to challenge incumbents or party-anointed candidates in a primary are discouraged from running and receive little or no support from the parties and their consultants. Independents who want to run for office rapidly discover that there is no support system to help them, and that most party-affiliated political consultants will not work with them. We’re here to bridge the gap.”

The firm is focused on four key client areas: independents running for public office, challenger candidates, independent expenditure groups and ballot propositions. Each of the firm’s four partners has a demonstrated commitment to political independence.

Barkley is a former independent senator from Minnesota. He also chaired Jesse Ventura’s successful third-party campaign for governor and worked on independent Arianna Huffington’s campaign for governor of California.

D’Amore is a partner in a public affairs consulting firm, Doyle, D’Amore & Balducci, which he will continue to run outside DHOB. He is a former chair of the Connecticut Republican Party, but he has also worked on independent campaigns for governor in Massachusetts and Virginia.

Hillsman is the founder of North Woods Advertising in Minneapolis, which he will also continue to run outside DHOB. He was a media consultant for the senatorial campaigns of Paul Wellstone in Minnesota and Ned Lamont in Connecticut and the presidential campaign of Ralph Nader.

Oliver is the co-founder of the Independence Party of New York state and focuses on ballot access. She has previously worked with D’Amore and Hillsman on independent candidate Russ Potts’ campaign for Virginia governor.

Independents are Ready for Barack Obama. But is Obama Ready for Black Independents?

February 10, 2007
By Lenora Fulani

Two weeks ago, I spoke at a national conference of independent voters. There were 500 activist independents, from 31 states – over a third of whom were African American. This conference was the latest indicator that black voters are more politically volatile these days, more independent in their voting and thinking. Many will be receptive to Barack Obama and his presidential campaign. A pressing question is whether he will return the interest. Independents may be ready for Obama. But is Obama ready for us?

With independent voter registration growing in Harlem, Oakland and Newark, there is a new constituency in African American politics – the Black Independent. As many as 35% of younger black voters now identify as independent, rather than Democrat. Forty-seven percent of African Americans deserted the Democratic nominee in the 2005 New York City mayoral race to re-elect the Independent Republican Mike Bloomberg. Last year, 32% of Augusta, Georgia voters rejected a Democrat incumbent state legislator and cast ballots for the black independent Helen Blocker-Adams. Black America is no longer a political monolith. Traditional partisan politics have lost their appeal.

Barack Obama is a critic of partisan politics whose road to prominence did not pass through the standard Democratic Party stopping points, i.e. the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the local empowerment machines of the 1970s or the Rainbow surge of the 1980s. He would seem to be a natural fit for black independents.

But as soon as Senator Obama got into the first “scrap” of his campaign – the ridiculous remarks made by Senator Joe Biden about how “clean” and “articulate” Obama is – his response made black independents totally invisible.

Obama issued a statement that listed prior black presidential candidates to show Biden that he wasn’t the first clean-cut African American to run for the White House. The list included nearly everybody – Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun and Shirley Chisholm – everybody, that is, but me, the black independent who ran for president twice, and who made the history books for being the first African American ever to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states. Even the “white bread” USA Today included me in its recent historical review.
Perhaps Senator Obama left me off the list because I’m not clean enough. The New York Post does generally refer to me as the “odious Lenora Fulani,” but I always took that to be a right wing political polemic, not a comment on my perfume. No, I suspect I was left off because I’m not a Democrat. I wouldn’t be shocked if his advisors told him – “Don’t put anyone in your statement who isn’t a Democrat.” If that’s true, it’s a very unfortunate piece of advice. Because in leaving me off the list, Senator Obama crosses a growing portion of black America off his list, too.

Being black is not synonymous with being a Democrat anymore, as much as the Clintons – and others – would have us believe. No less a figure than Reverend Al Sharpton has made that point loud and clear, including when he has spoken out against attempts by white Democrats, like Senator Hillary Clinton, to drive black independents like me out of politics.

Barack Obama has just made it official. He’s running for president of the United States. His message is that it’s time to put principles ahead of partisanship. Black independents have been acting on that idea for years. How he relates to us is the first real test of his principles.

Black Voters Declaring Independence

New York Sun
October 4, 2005 Edition
Black Voters Declaring Independence
By JOHN P. AVLON

"Crime - I'm conservative. Prostitution - I'm liberal," says the reigning King of Comedy, Chris Rock. The libertarian-sounding riff received rounds of laughter and applause from the audience recorded for his recent HBO special, but it hits on a deeper trend whose ripples could build up to rock underlying assumptions about American politics. African-Americans are de-aligning from the Democratic Party, but Republicans have so far failed to pick them up in significant numbers. The result is a shift that could increase the influence of, and competition for, African-American votes, while swelling the rising tide of independent voters across the nation.

Until recently one of the truisms of American politics that blacks were the most dependable constituency of any party in America, with over 90% of their votes going to Democratic candidates. This trend began when the FDR New Deal coalition reached out to the dispossessed during the Great Depression and claimed the allegiance of many blacks from the Party of Lincoln.

This was compounded during the 1960s when the Republican Party embraced the philosophy of states rights, leading Barry Goldwater to win 87% of the vote in Mississippi while Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society civil rights legislation won a nationwide landslide victory. When Ronald Reagan chose to symbolically kick off his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Miss. - where, coincidentally or not, the CORE trinity of Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman were murdered by the KKK - these perceptions were highlighted in a way that the substantive elevation of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice has not yet been able to eliminate.

But something has been happening in the African-American community. Just as the Reverend Al Sharpton hasn't gotten the memo that there is no position titled "Leader of Black America" available anymore, the diversification of the black community economically and politically is changing the landscape. One recent sign of this is the surprising amount of support for Mayor Bloomberg among African-American voters. In a city where local elections have too long been defined by ethnic algebra, Republicans have had a hard time winning over black voters. But Mr. Bloomberg has made an appeal to African-Americans a cornerstone of his re-election bid, while straining to show his independence from the national Republican Party. A recent WNBC/Marist poll showed the mayor receiving 50% support from black voters in a race against Fernando Ferrer with the election five weeks away.

Rev. Sharpton's endorsement of Mr. Ferrer has so far failed to shift that balance, and while the mayor's mistaken decision to not attend a debate at the Apollo Theater in Harlem this Thursday may somewhat impact his support, the break in the often-invoked "coalition of color" in favor of a Republican mayor is extraordinary. It has also been fueled by the New York Independence Party's enthusiastic campaigning for Mr. Bloomberg among the African-American community with a voter push titled "Bloomberg on C," offering people the chance to re-elect the mayor without pulling the Republican lever. There is evidence that this trend is not limited to Mr. Bloomberg. In St. Petersburg, Fla., the conservative Republican mayor, Rick Baker - a close ally of the governor, Jeb Bush - is cruising to re-election with an unlikely 85% support among African-American voters in a city that had been deeply divided by race. The reason? Mr. Baker spent serious time and effort rebuilding a previously ignored center of the city, now know as Midtown. A national analysis of shifts in the black community shows that the move away from the Democratic Party and towards political independence is strongest among young African- American voters. According to a paper titled "The Political Orientations of Young African Americans" by David A. Bositis published in the journal Soul, this year, underwritten by the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, one quarter of African American voters under the age of 35 now identify as political independents, in contrast to 10% of senior citizens. The growing trend is broad as well as deep - in 1998 only 5% of African-American voters between the age of 51 and 64 identified as independents, but by 2002 that number increased fourfold to 21%.

This analysis shows that 25% of young black voters are self-described conservatives, while 31% are moderates. On education policy, 66% support school vouchers for public, private or parochial school - a major point of policy difference between the Republican and Democratic Party - while nearly 80% favor partial privatization of Social Security. This is in sharp contrast to African-American elected officials in particular, of whom 70% over the age of 40 oppose school vouchers.

This growing disconnect between the liberal African-American political establishment and young voters should cause serious concern among Democratic Party power brokers. The national spokesman for the Congress On Racial Equality, Niger Innis, believes that "the trend of younger black voters moving away from the plantation to the independent line, if not the Republican Party, is reflective of a moderation of tone, a movement away from the traditional left wing."

"That momentum scares the beejezus out of the establishment left-wing black leadership," Mr. Innis continues. "That's why they're getting more caustic and extreme with their language, because they want to stroke paranoia among the black community so that nothing changes." This, in turn, only fuels the generational divide which is evident when you compare younger African-American elected leaders such as Rep. Harold Ford Jr. to a former Black Panther such as Rep. Bobby Rush, or Senator Obama of Illinois to Jesse Jackson.

A realignment is under way: The question is whether the Republican Party can convincingly reach out to African-American voters, or whether further de-alignment toward independents will occur in this absence. In any case, it is a healthy sign of a nation that is slowly evolving past crippling left/right, black/white limitations and toward a fundamentally freer time when an individual's political beliefs are assumed to be more than skin deep.

John P. Avlon is a columnist and associate editor of the New York Sun, former chief speechwriter for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and author of the new book Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics (Random House, 2005). Contact him at javlon@nysun.com and visit his website http://www.independentnation.org/

In New York, Fringe Politics in Mainstream

May 28, 2005

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

More than a decade ago, when Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani embraced Marxist ideology, they could not persuade even the Rev. Al Sharpton to run under the banner of their fringe political party in his 1992 Senate bid.

Mr. Sharpton, seeking to gain legitimacy as a candidate, began distancing himself from the two and from their New Alliance Party, as questions about his past association with them threatened to undermine his campaign and his credibility.

But in recent years, Dr. Fulani and Dr. Newman have found many of the state's top political leaders eager to court their latest organization, the Independence Party of New York.

Through the party, Dr. Fulani and Dr. Newman, who were once considered eccentric figures on the political fringe, have found new stature, to the point where Republicans like Gov. George E. Pataki to Democrats like Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and United States Senator Charles E. Schumer have courted their party's support. Today, the Independence Party is expected to endorse the re-election bid of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican.

(To read the rest of the article, click the link at the top)

Black America: We Have a Problem!

By Tyra C. Cohen

The media will have you believe the biggest post Black history month news is Martha Stewart’s departure from “Camp Cupcake” (Alderson Federal Prison Camp) after serving five months for what is coined a “white collar crime”. Alderson Federal Prison Camp has no metal fences surrounding the camp because most of the inmates are supposedly convicted of non-violent crimes. Inmates Sarah Jane Moore on September 22, 1975 and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme on August 22, 1975 tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Another notable inmate Jazz great Billie Holiday who in 1959 was arrested for Heroin addiction, an illness not a crime.

Incarceration
44% of all prisoners in the United States are black. The incarcerated populations have quadrupled since 1980 and guess what not because of violent crimes but because of the war on drugs or more particularly black drug users. African Americans are arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned for drug offenses at far higher rates than whites. Blacks constitute 63 percent of all offenders admitted to state prisons. The explosion in the prison populations has largely taken place under your beloved Clinton administration. While Clinton and the Republican Congress have gutted spending for welfare and social programs, they have poured billions into hiring more police, and building more prisons and boot camps. We live in a country that holds itself out as the “land of freedom” yet incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country. The absolute level of black incarceration should be cause for national concern.

Health Crisis
African-American youth are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Race and ethnicity are not risk factors but are risk markers that correlate with fundamental determinants of health such as poverty and limited access to quality health care. HIV/AIDS is the number one killer among African Americans ages 25-44. Don’t relax yet, the prevalence of HIV infection in people over the age of 50 years is growing. The number of AIDS cases reported in adults 50 years and over quintupled between 1990 and 2001 from 16,288 to 90,513.Yet one of the first things President Bush did after inauguration 2001 was attempt to close the Office of National AIDS Policy. HIV/AIDS epidemic is a health crisis for African Americans, yet we are blinded by the smokescreen called down-low. What is the definition of Down-Low? Does anybody know? New Jersey Governor McGreevey publicly admitted to “an adult consensual affair with another man.” J.L. King down-low poster boy and author of Living on the Down-Low says he was married and having adult consensual sex with other men. These are stories of sex, lies and just plain old cheating. It’s about dealing with critical, uncomfortable conversations about sexuality. White men are on the “down low” obviously and we live in a country that has far more white men than black men, so it stands to reason that there are far more white men on the down low. Why aren’t more white women being infected with HIV? We have a problem when we become so unconsciously entrenched in the media hype that we blame an entire epidemic on black men along with the victimization of black women. The real down low is the correlation between the rise in the prison population of African American men and the increase risk of leaving the prison with HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and or tuberculosis. Incarcerated persons have a disproportionate burden of infectious disease.

Education
Education is the only respectable catalyst for economic and social improvement. Now 50 years after Brown versus Board of Education we are in an ample position to historically analyze just what integration has done for the education of black students. We have a problem when the number of Americans living in poverty grew from 34.5 million in 2002 to 35.8 million in 2003, while the most affluent fifth of the population received half of all household income and the poorest fifth received only 3.5 percent. Nearly 1 in 4 African Americans live in poverty.

Law
Supreme Court Justices have the power to influence every factor of our lives with their decisions as the highest court in the United States -- from the right to privacy to the right to free speech. Supreme Court decisions affect every law in the nation, and Supreme Court Justices serve lifetime appointments. Now with that in mind understand there is an opportunity during President Bush’s tenure to appoint potentially two Supreme Court nominees. Rumor, also known as the media has it that 80 year old Chief Justice William Rehnquist and 74 year old Sandra Day O’Connor may step down off the lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. This will give Bush the opportunity to change the overall orientation of the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman appointed to Supreme Court, O’Connor has become one the most watched justices on the Court because she is known as the swing vote. One of the short list nominees is John Roberts. John Roberts clerked for the current Chief Justice Rehnquist, and was nominated in 1992 by Senior Bush but the nomination lapsed before it could be considered. Yet John Roberts was appointed in 2003 to U.S. appeals court in Washington, DC by President G.W. Bush. John Roberts has a record of hostility to the rights of women and minorities. He supported a hard-line anti-civil rights policy that opposed affirmative action, which would have made it impossible for minorities to prove a violation of the Voting Rights Act. He also took anti-choice positions in two Supreme Court cases.

Reality
African Americans must be revolutionary enough to know what time it is in history and do something about that. It is time in our history to turn inward as strategic planners. We cannot forget that former President Bill Clinton left a legacy in the prison system during his eight years in office that was more punitive than both of his Republican predecessors Reagan and Bush. In the last two decades the rate of Black incarceration more than tripled. The Reagan Administration gave us the Contras, drug for arms scandal and the surge of crack cocaine. While the Contra’s war is barely a memory today, black America is still dealing with its poisonous side effects. Urban neighborhoods are grappling with legions of homeless crack addicts. Thousands of young black men are serving long prison sentences for selling cocaine-a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before members of the CIA's army started bringing it into South-Central in the 1980s at bargain-basement prices. Cocaine, typically referred to as a white, middle-class drug, users receive lighter sentences than crack users. Crack is seen as a poor, Black drug. It takes 100 times more powdered cocaine to land you in jail than crack. Suppressing the Black vote is also achieved by disenfranchising incarcerated Black men. The best way you can destroy a people is to take away their ability to reproduce themselves. We have a problem.

Solution
African Americans must vote! We must vote because we need political rights and economic security. Out of the entire population of black-America, half of them are registered voters and 90 percent of those voted for the Democratic Party. Some African Americans have accused the Democratic Party of practicing "plantation politics." They say that although blacks repeatedly are depended on to keep the party in elected office, African Americans often are overlooked for key leadership posts. President Bush courted the Hispanic vote in the last election to the tune of an election year proposal that would grant immigrants legal status and release the threat of deportation. According to the last census report Hispanics are the largest minority. Democrats and Republicans, aware of the surge, have placed increased emphasis on attracting Hispanic voters.
Many young black voters are disenchanted with black leadership as well as the Democratic Party. Most aren't out to join the GOP, but they are more independent in their thinking and in their politics. There was a significant increase in those calling themselves independents, especially between the ages of 26 and 35. We need progressive independent political organizing that involves having goals that extend into the next millennium. Politicians are well aware of the correlation between the likelihood of voting and economic and educational background. All politics is local, so it is time that we take the necessary steps to control and fix what is going on where we live, instead of neglecting neighborhoods in order to rush to the aid of our friends across town; or worse waiting for help to come to us. Democrats take the black vote for granted and Republicans don’t need African Americans to win. Let’s join the 35% of Americans who identify as Political Independents. It’s the only way to Political Freedom.

Tyra can be reached at: Tyra_Cohen@yahoo.com

The Poor Have No Voice

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (To read the entire article, please go the the link above) It’s said that most of the congressmen, the representatives of the American people, are from the wealthy class. The wealthy and the privileged in this society, who have benefited most from the federal debt, corporate restructurings and plant relocations, are the people charged with representing the poor. Can they adequately represent the poor? ......In the 1992 presidential debates, a young woman asked the candidates how can they, who have never known suffering in their lives, lead the American people and bring a healing to what ails the country? The closest people to the proper representation of the masses and their suffering are the Blacks, women, Native Americans, poor Whites and Hispanics. In the Congress, the closest representative of the poor is the Congressional Black Caucus. Each year, they have developed and presented before Congress a budget that would keep America strong, while at the same time looking out for the masses of America’s people. Each year, their efforts have been belittled and their budget has been voted down. ......In truth, the poor are voiceless in society as it is presently structured. Every president in recent history has been of the privileged class. This does not mean that being wealthy disqualifies one for leadership. Being wealthy does mean that there is a lack of an experiential vantage point that we must pay careful attention to. It was Mr. Ross Perot, among all the candidates in the ‘92 presidential election, who recognized—and openly stated—that the wealth he has achieved is from the poor. Now he sees that same country and those same working-class people who gave him the opportunity to be a billionaire, going down the tubes.