The Three Stories of Memorial Day - An AA view

As the U.S. Civil War came to a close in April 1865, Union troops entered the city of Charleston, S.C., where four years prior the war had begun. While white residents had largely fled the city, Black residents of Charleston remained to celebrate and welcome the troops, who included the TwentyFirst Colored Infantry. Their celebration on May 1, 1865, the first “Decoration Day,” later became Memorial Day.

May 1 1865 will be the first words out of my mouth today, first to my mate and children, then to everyone I meet. I will alert them to the Cultural Health opportunity in the memorial day holiday for Americans of good will.

As you know in the pursuit of improving our nation's Cultural Health I emphasize the use of American holiday's as major Cultural Health opportunities, for the nation's short attention span is more focused during theses times and emotions are high. For that reason these are important times to identify major elements of Cultural Poisoning and provide family, friends and readers with the antidote, should they decide to accept the holiday cultural health mission.

Let's Go To The Video Tape

Thank your for your article Radio Free America

As a soldier in my time (Vietnam) and my father before me in his time (WWII). Memorial day is a serious holiday. Your MSNBC/Newsvine article has improved my Cultural Literacy today in a manor that will enable me to add a substantial antidote to what I historically do on this day.

On Thanksgiving I run the head line of "The TWO Stories of Thanksgiving. This year the Cultural Health Headline that comes to mind is "The Three Stories of Memorial Day". An so here it is I turned my comment into this commentary on my blog. 

I.E.

!. The Emancipation Story - AA life and death battle against Cultural Terrorism

2. The Reconciliationist Story - honoring the dead on both sides, reunification.

3. The White Supremacist Story - Pro enslavement, anti- human rights for all

Yes, Historian David Blight in his Race and Reunion, does America a great favor in helping to restore her Cultural Literacy about this tuning point in multi-ethnic America's FORWARD moving history. So it is with great interest that Americans of good will should note the BACKWARD Republican presidential campain of Mitt, vulture capitalist, Romney in the context of Memorial Day.

As the great American Malcolm would say, we must open our eyes to the reality that the sons and daughters of the nineteenth century's unholy alliance of criminal capitalist and White Supremacists still walk among us carrying and spreading the dis-ease of Cultural Poisoning for the same reasons of old.

Why it was just two short weeks ago that a swimming buddy that had not been at the club in some time as he had lost his job in the Bush depression had  found a job and was back swimming with us. After the swim, in the locker room there was a heated political discussion, This now admitted Republican blurted out that he would like to see things go back to 1879. In my best President Obama demeanor I advised him that AA's would not see a benefit in going back to 1879. One of our mutual EA friends who was following our discussion leaned over to me and said, man, this is going to be a hell of a political season in the locker room, I agreed, lol.

So this Memorial day is a good time to retell the story of the original "Memorial" Day, Declaration Day and the ongoing battle over the memory of the civil war. Yes, in light of Tea Party extremist Republicans who want to re-fight the civil war there is a pressing need to shed light on this particular element of Cultural Poisoning as the White Washing of America's internal war is causing many low information voters in the old dirty south to again engage in Jim Crow voter suppression. This criminal disguised poll tax/test criminal  behavior by elected Republicans second only to treason.

So, yes, we have much work to to this memorial day, roll up those cultural soldier sleeves and lets get busy.

P.S. Don't forget the estimated 100 million fallen of World War Zero (WW0) c. 1500 B.C.E. to Present. While the battle of WW0 runs hot and cold, to be effective we must know which, battle we are in and the why big picture. 

Amen!

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#2 - Mon May 28, 2012 2:44 AM EDT

Hetep and Respect one last time to a great civil rights soldier in one of the hot battles of the Cultural War c.1500 B.C.E. - 2011 C.E.

I remember as a young person watching the Rev. stand up to ol' `Bull' Connor, a criminally insane cop, who stood on the steps over him blocking African Americans from entering the building to register to vote. The Bull lunged at the rev and cracked him in the face with his billy club, blood went everywhere. The Rev. looked the Bull in his little cultural terrorist eyes and said, we are going to vote,you can beat us, but we will be back! (paraphrase)

As I looked for a video for this tribute to Rev. Shuttleworths I found plenty of history but what was needed as I found out was a way to let you feel what it might have felt like to sit in the Rev's church and feel his spirit. And to maybe let you feel what his life and passing is saying to your/our spirit today. 

Let's Go To The Video Tape

To my Brothers and Sisters who fail to vote, do not fail the Rev. and us in 2012 - Wake the hell uP!

Remembering Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Video 2:45 See and hear the Rev yourself.

To understand a Civil Rights Soldier you must understand the Cultural Terrorist he was fighting. Bull Connor controlled the police department and fire department in Birmingham Alabama, and filled them with other Cultural Terrorists.

To have a good look at the face of overt Cultural Terrorism in America in the 60's that Rev. Shuttlesworth, as one of the big three generals of the Civil Rights Battle of the Cultural War helped to defeat, watch this video Click HERE.

As the old dirty South type Republicans continue the war against Americans voting today, we can learn from the courage of our ancestor.

He transitioned at 89 instead of 120. This should remind us all to work to improve our physical health, Cultural Health and Spiritual Health so that we might maximize our time and purpose in this life.

Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth your country thanks you for your service to her. Your community thanks you and we continue to look to your leadership honorable ancestor.

R.I.P
Go to the lead video and feel the Rev's spirit one more time before you leave this part of the piece.

Amplify’d from www.newsvine.com (join a discussion on MSNBC/Neswsvine) see my original thoughts on hearing the news of the Revs transition. 

Civil rights leader the Rev. Shuttlesworth dies

BIRMINGHAM — The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who was bombed, beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight for civil rights and hailed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for his courage and tenacity, has died. He was 89.

FILE - In this June 28, 2007 file photo, civil rights activist the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth departs the Federal Courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. Shuttlesworth, who was hailed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for his courage and energy, died Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 at teh Birmingham, Ala. hospital. He was 89. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

"My church was a beehive," Shuttlesworth once said. "I made the movement. I made the challenge. Birmingham was the citadel of segregation, and the people wanted to march."

In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait," King called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man."

Birmingham Mayor William Bell ordered city flags lowered to half-staff until after Shuttleworth's funeral. Bell, who is black, said he would not be mayor if not for leaders like Shuttlesworth.

"I went to jail 30 or 40 times, not for fighting or stealing or drugs," Shuttlesworth told grade school students in 1997. "I went to jail for a good thing, trying to make a difference."

Alabama's first black federal judge, U.W. Clemon, said Shuttlesworth flung himself at injustice well knowing he could be killed at any moment. "He was the first black man I knew who was totally unafraid of white folks," said Clemon, who retired from the bench and is now a privately practicing attorney.

And in November 2008, Shuttlesworth watched from a hospital bed as Sen. Barack Obama was elected the nation's first African-American president. The year before, Obama had pushed Shuttlesworth's wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during a commemoration of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march — a moment Obama recalled Wednesday.

In the early 1960s, Shuttlesworth had invited King back to Birmingham. Televised scenes of police dogs and fire hoses being turned on black marchers, including children, in the spring of 1963 helped the rest of the nation grasp the depth of racial animosity in the Deep South.

. "He marched into the jaws of death every day in Birmingham before we got there," said Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador who served as an aide to King.

"When God made Bull Connor, one of the real negative forces in this country, He was sure to make Fred Shuttlesworth." Lowery said. Read more at www.newsvine.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1eb6l

Dr. King, Cultural Poisoning and You

Every Dr, Martin Luther King Day should be a day of self-improvement. It is a National Holiday, take your well deserved time off, but don’t let the day go to waste. It is a day that all Americans should use to improve their Cultural Health.

Did Dr. King exhibit symptoms of Cultural Poisoning? The answer is yes.

If you listen to Dr. King's speeches you will note that he uses the word "Negro" often. This was common among most Americans of the sixties. “Negro” is a DoubleSpeak word (not reality based). It is both a symptom of Cultural Poisoning and the means of transmitting the dis-ease. King suffered from this strain of Cultural Poisoning known as Name AIDS.

Cultural Literacy Minute: Cultural AIDS = Acquired Information Deficiency Syndrome.

How have we done since the 1960's regarding Name AIDS? We have done well in some respects and terrible in others. African Americans and as a result most Americans in general have cured the "Negro" strain of Name AIDS, even though they did not have Cultural Health terminology to describe the dis-ease. The Culturally Healthy result of their actions is that few Americans call anyone a "Negro" in 2010 (African year 12010).

That is, except the Democratic leader of the Senate Harry Reid, and even he knows better now, after all the flack the use of this Culturally Poisoned term brought him.

Our honored ancestor James Brown helped move us from “Negros” to I’m Black and I’m Proud. Malcolm X helped move us to African American, along side Asian American and European American.

On the other hand the pejorative "n" word form of Name AIDS has grown to epidemic proportions among African American youth and is threatening to spread to the larger American population. This back sliding trend of youthful N-word crack must be stopped. We must restore the Cultural Health of our youth. I am sure Dr. King would be standing next to us in this 21st century challenge. Our honorable ancestor Dr. King was also anti-Kamitic. That is, he from his religious training was on occasion heard to refer to our honorable ancestors the Kametans (Egyptians) negatively. This was another symptom of Cultural Poisoning that sometimes results from Cultural Illiteracy. Raising Cultural Literacy regarding Classical African Civilization, Kemit, (ancient Egypt) remains a 21st century challenge.

Now, Dr. King no doubt was a great American leader. Cultural Poisoning (CP) does not keep you or I from functioning. Despite CP, King did more then his share of good for humankind. I am not Dr. King bashing. I point out King’s symptoms to raise a Cultural Health Flag regarding who can suffer from Cultural Poisoning. In my DoubleSpeak book, I assert that 90% of all Americans suffer from some degree of Cultural Poisoning including Dr. King, and you and I.

The term Cultural Poisoning and the concept of Cultural Health did not exist in King’s time. Happily his moral motor was strong enough to drive the non-violence 18-wheeler of Civil Rights onto the main highways in America. If the Cultural Health concept came forward in his time, I am confident that he would have looked into it and incorporated raising Cultural Literacy and the reduction of Cultural Poisoning into his non-violent approach to America’s "race" problem.

King like Gandhi and others before them worked against the odds. Non-violent civil rights, was not as popular then as it is today. But King stayed focused, seeing the light of the future at the end of the tunnel. And so in our time, we understand that Cultural Health is not as popular today as it will be tomorrow. And so all of us, who have started this journey especially on this day, need to be reminded by our honored ancestor, to stay focused on the power of language and keep our eyes on the prize.

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. The concept of Cultural Health is on the move. As we transition from the Civil Rights Movement of the nineteenth century, to the Cultural Health Movement of the Twenty First Century, we must make NuuSpeak phrases like Cultural Poisoning and Cultural Literacy household words in America and around the world.

Every MLK day should be utilized as an opportunity to remind Americans, that the very best of our citizens can suffer from some strains of Cultural Poisoning. This does not make a person a racist. There is a middle ground between humanism and racism; the middle ground is Cultural Poisoning. It is not a disgrace to suffer from Cultural Poisoning; it is disgraceful not to do anything about it.

Cultural Health requires action to gain traction. Now that you know better, you must do better. Your mission, should you decide to accept, is to identify one symptom of Cultural Poisoning that you suffer from and cure it.

I wish you Cultural Health, Wealth and Wisdom.
Happy MLK Day

Aunk

See Video Clip of Dr. Kings speech against the war 2 minutes

This is a Special Black History Month

Needless to say, this Black History month is a special one for America, in light of the historic Democratic Party presentation, of an African American and a Woman for President in the primaries.

Every Year We have Black History Month and Many of us are about to overdose on the Dr. Martin Luther King "I have A Dream Speech". However, many of our children have never heard the speech. Many young people that are getting ready to vote on Super Duper Tuesday have not seen the King or the Kennedy speech. So If you have a young person who needs to improve this aspect of their Cultural Literacy send them a link.

Some time during the month I will put up the Kennedy inauguration speech when I can track it down. The other thing that is important to understand about kings speech is that it was originally the Bounced Check Speech. The most important part of the speech is in the beginning. The dream part was a later add on. The end is the most emotionally charged and most remembered but the beginning has the most valuable information and King's challenge to America that we are still working on.

The First Part of the Speech
(adjusted for Cultural Health with my political commentary at the end.)


I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.


Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of enslaved Africans who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the African still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the African in America is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the African lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the African American is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given Black people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.


For the last eight years Bush and the forty thieves have captured us Americans under the specter of torture and injustice once again. Bush has not just given a blank check to the American citizens of Katrina but is giving blank checks to the world while lining the pockets of the forty thieves. Will November 08, 2008 "...go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation..."

It is once again the turn of the young, your country needs you.

Get fired uP and ready to Go!

Cultural Literacy Minute: African names for African Things

Could you detect the Cultural Health adjustments to the speech? The point is, if the honorable Dr. King could suffer from symptoms of Cultural Poisoning you and I would not be immune from this dis-ease. The good news is that words are easy to correct, why you can do it yourself and its FREE and freeing.

One last note, I could not detect one symptom (words) of Cultural Poisoning at the Presidential Kodak Debate in California. WoW, we may be able to cash that promissory note yet, if we all do our part.

Give yourself a check up from the neck uP

I wish you a Culturally Healthy and Wealthy Black History Month - Stay Tuned.

The American "Health" System is SiCKO

Michael Moore's SiCKO (official trailer) What is important to note is the insurance corporation employee that on camera, under oath, tells us she was hired to kill the corporations customers, us the insured. (Video)


I just saw Sicko. Just so you know, I am not a movie goer However, after I heard a Republican recommend one of Micheal Moore's movies, I made it a must see. I am currently writing a book on Health and SiCKO is about Universal Health Care (UHC), Which countries have it and how it works. However, Sicko is not just about UHC it is about what kind of country do we want America to be.




In case you missed it, at 1:40 into the video, Dr Linda Peeno testified that she was hired by the criminal insurance industry to kill its customers. Dr. Peeno has subsequently pointed out that no "law enforcement" agency has contacted her or her company, let alone initiated prosecution for crimes against patients.

I mean wait a minute. just think about this for a second. Suppose you were hired by Walmart as a cashier and your manager told you ("implied") that you need to kill a certain percentage of the customers you serviced. would you want to be a customer? I mean what kind of store would this be? What kind of country do we live in?

I mean, I am just saying, now back to the immediate issue reform.

FDR had it right, here is the surprise lost clip that was at the end of SICKO.  These are the three pieces that caught my eye.

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and
unemployment;

The right to a good education.

From bottom to top Public Education, Social Security and our President has made a good down payment on the FDR health vision. 

Here is a link to a Universal Health Care Map . You will notice that their seems to be no UHC on the continent of Africa. It is interesting to note that the continent that invented universal health care (Everyone in a village was entitled to adequate care), seems to have forgotten.

Every American and every African shouid see this movie!