Nigeria Becoming A Strategic Failure and Irrelevant to the World ~ Princeton Lyman

Posted By: Ikokwu Ikembaon: August 03, 2019In: Breaking News, Politics, WorldNo Comments

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A thought provoking piece!

Princeton N. Lyman, the former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa,
delivered a very poignant speech on the panel titled “The Nigerian State and
U.S. Strategic Interests” at the Achebe Colloquium at Brown University, USA.

TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH (TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM THE VIDEO SPEECH)

Thank you very much Prof. Keller and thanks to the organizers of this conference. It is such a privilege to be here in a conference in honor of Prof. Achebe, an inspiration and teacher to all of us.

I have a long connection to Nigeria. Not only was I Ambassador there, I
have travelled to and from Nigeria for a number of years and have a deep and abiding vital emotional attachment to the Nigerian people, their magnificence, their courage, artistic brilliance, their irony, sense of humor in the face of challenges etc.

And I hope that we keep that in mind when I say some things that I think are counter to what we normally say about Nigeria. And I say that with all due respect to Eric Silla who is doing a magnificent work at State Department and to our good friend from the legislature, because I have a feeling that we both Nigerians and Americans may be doing Nigeria and Nigerians no favor by stressing Nigeria’s strategic importance.

I know all the arguments: it is a major oil producer, it is the most
populous country in Africa, it has made major contributions to Africa in peacekeeping, and of course negatively if Nigeria were to fall apart the ripple effects would be tremendous, etc.. But I wonder if all this emphasis on Nigeria’s importance creates a tendency of inflate Nigeria’s opinion of its own invulnerability.

Among much of the elite today, I have the feeling that there is a belief that Nigeria is too big to fail, too important to be ignored, and that Nigerians can go on ignoring some of the most fundamental challenges they
have many of which we have talked about: disgraceful lack of
infrastructure, the growing problems of unemployment, the failure to deal with the underlying problems in the Niger-Delta, the failure to consolidate democracy and somehow feel will remain important to everybody because of all those reasons that are strategically important.

And I am not sure that that is helpful.

Let me sort of deconstruct those elements of Nigeria’s importance, and ask whether they are as relevant as they have been.

We often hear that one in five Africans is a Nigerian. What does it mean? Do we ever say one in five Asians is a Chinese? Chinese power comes not just for the fact that it has a lot of people but it has harnessed the entrepreneurial talent and economic capacity and all the other talents of China to make her a major economic force and political force.

What does it mean that one in five Africans is Nigeria? It does not mean anything to a Namibian or a South African. It is a kind of conceit. What makes it important is what is happening to the people of Nigerian. Are their talents being tapped? Are they becoming an economic force? Is all that potential being used?

And the answer is “Not really.”

And oil, yes, Nigeria is a major oil producer, but Brazil is now launching a 10-year program that is going to make it one of the major oil producers in the world. And every other country in Africa is now beginning to produce oil.

And Angola is rivalling Nigeria in oil production, and the United States has just discovered a huge gas reserve which is going to replace some of our dependence on imported energy.

So if you look ahead ten years, is Nigeria really going to be that relevant as a major oil producer, or just another of another of the many oil producers while the world moves on to alternative sources of energy and other sources of supply.

And what about its influence, its contributions to the continent? As our representative from the parliament talked about, there is a great history of those contributions. But that is history.

Is Nigeria really playing a major role today in the crisis in Niger on its border, or in Guinea, or in Darfur, or after many many promises making any contributions to Somalia?

The answer is no, Nigeria is today NOT making a major impact, on its region, or on the African Union or on the big problems of Africa that it was making before.

What about its economic influence?

Well, as we have talked about earlier, there is a de industrialization going on in Nigeria a lack of infrastructure, a lack of power means that with imported goods under globalization, Nigerian factories are closing, more and more people are becoming unemployed. and Nigeria is becoming a kind of
society that imports and exports and lives off the oil, which does not
make it a significant economic entity.

Now, of course, on the negative side, the collapse of Nigeria would be enormous, but is that a point to make Nigeria strategically important?

Years ago, I worked for an Assistant Secretary of State who had the longest tenure in that job in the 1980s and I remember in one meeting a minister from a country not very friendly to the United States came in and was berating the Assistant Secretary on all the evils of the United States and
all its dire plots and in things in Africa and was going on and on and
finally the Assistant Secretary cut him off and said: “You know, the biggest danger for your relationship with the United States is not our oppostion but that we will find you irrelevant.”

The point is that Nigeria can become much less relevant to the United States. We have already seen evidence of it. When President Obama went to Ghana and not to Nigeria, he was sending a message, that Ghana symbolized
more of the significant trends, issues and importance that one wants to put on Africa than Nigeria.

And when I was asked by journalists why President Obama did not go to Nigeria, I said “what would he gain from going? Would Nigeria be a good model for democracy, would it be a model for good governance, would he
obtain new commitments on Darfur or Somalia or strengthen the African Union or in Niger or elsewhere?”

No he would not, so he did not go.

And when Secretary Clinton did go, indeed but she also went to Angola and who would have thought years ago that Angola would be the most stable country in the Gulf of Guinea and establish a binational commission in Angola.

So the handwriting may already be on the wall, and that is a sad commentary.

Because what it means is that Nigeria’s most important strategic importance in the end could be that it has failed.

And that is a sad sad conclusion. It does not have to happen, but I think that we ought to stop talking about what a great country it is, and how terribly important it is to us and talk about what it would take for Nigeria to be that important and great.

And that takes an enormous amount of commitment. And you don’t need saints, you don’t need leaders like Nelson Mandela in every state, because you are not going to get them.

I served in South Korea in the middle of the 1960s and it was time when South Korea was poor and considered hopeless, but it was becoming to turn around, later to become to every person’s amazement then the eleventh
largest economy in the world. And I remember the economist in my mission saying, you know it did not bother him that the leading elites in the government of South Korea were taking 15 – 20 percent off the top of every project, as long as every project was a good one, and that was the difference. The leadership at the time was determined to solve the fundamental economic issues of South Korea economy and turn its economy around.

It has not happened in Nigeria today.

You don’t need saints. It needs
leaders who say “You know we could be becoming irrelevant, and we got to do something about it.”

Thank you!
POSTSCRIPT: The conclusion of Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman’s speech has always been my opinion and position. Nations are never governed by saints but by performers who may be crooked but are straightened out by strong institutions. Nigerians, unfortunately, continue to delude ourselves that there are Angels who will help turn everyone into good guys while ignoring and neglecting the priorities of good governance like solid infrastructure, education, healthcare, rule of law, employment and so on. Monumental tragedy is beckoning, sadly.

SOURCE

Dr. Bennet Omalu vs. the NFL: ‘I’m not anti-football’

BY JOSH ROTTENBERG, LOS ANGELES TIMES AT 10:01 AM ON JAN 1, 2016

At first glance, Dr. Bennet Omalu seems an unlikely subject for a major studio movie. A Nigerian-born forensic pathologist, Omalu worked for years in quiet obscurity, performing autopsies at the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office in Pittsburgh — hardly the kind of resume that would normally attract the attention of Hollywood.

But in 2002, Omalu performed an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster and found signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head — the first such discovery in a pro football player. Omalu’s findings put him on a collision course with the National Football League, which sought to undermine and discredit him. That story that is now recounted on the big screen in director Peter Landesman’s hot-button drama “Concussion,” with Will Smith playing Omalu.

RELATED: Frank Gifford’s family reveals that he suffered from concussion-related brain disease

We spoke to Omalu, 47, who now serves as the medical examiner of San Joaquin County in California, about his improbable journey from growing up in a village in Nigeria to taking on one of the most powerful institutions in the sports world.

Question: What did it feel like for you to watch this movie the first time?

Dr. Bennet Omalu: It was a very unusual feeling, watching someone act you on-screen. But really this has never been about me. It sounds weird, but as a physician we are taught in medical school to detach ourselves — yes, be empathic, but don’t get involved personally. So my approach to all this has been very professionalized.

This is not about me. It’s about a message. It’s way, way above my pay grade. I’m just as ordinary as everyone else.

RELATED: The Undertaker suffers severe concussion at ‘Wrestlemania’

Growing up in Nigeria, did you see many American movies?

My gosh, as a child, I loved American movies. I didn’t see so many of them, but I remember I saw “An Officer and a Gentleman,” I saw “The Sound of Music.” I had this idealistic image of America. I thought America was a heaven on Earth.

When you reported the first known case of CTE in a former pro football player, did you have any idea that your findings would get so much pushback from the NFL?

I was naive. I knew nothing about football. When I identified CTE, I was happy because I thought what I had discovered was going to enhance the game. When the NFL started coming after me, the NFL was going against the truth — not me. I knew in my heart of hearts, deep down, that the truth would always prevail. That is the humanity of science.

I’m a Christian. The Bible says, “Do not be afraid.” When you do something in truth, you step into the light. That was just what I did. The NFL was attacking me, ridiculing me, but they couldn’t change the truth.

RELATED: Ex-NFL player Donald Driver talks concussions: ‘Quit trying to change the rules’

The movie suggests that there was a degree of racism and xenophobia behind some of those attacks.

As a black man, I’m still discriminated against systemically and systematically. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, especially in the field of science.

Some people have told me, “Bennet, if you were white and you did what you’ve done, the NFL would have opened up an institution for you and had you serve as the head of it.” Even fellow doctors — including ones who, if I gave you their names, you’d be appalled — have made very derogatory, ugly statements about me simply based on my ethnicity. They have this tendency always to suspect: “He is suspicious — don’t trust him.”

I’ve been to meetings where, you look on the side of the (NFL) players and the majority are black and then you look on the side of the management and physicians of the NFL and the majority are white. It’s almost like 98 percent to 2 percent. Why?

There’s a level of violence that’s just inherent in football, and fans have always loved seeing those hard hits. Given what we know about the risks of brain injury, how would you like to see the sport change?

I’m not anti-football. If as an adult you know, ‘If I play football, there’s a risk I’ll suffer brain damage,’ and you still make up your mind to play, I would be one of the first to stand up and defend your right and freedom to play. It’s like smoking. If we tell you smoking will cause lung cancer and heart disease and you still as an adult make up your mind to smoke, I will defend your right to smoke if you want to. This is a free country.

But we need to protect children because they are still minors. If you start exposing yourself to blows to the head as a child, your risk of brain damage is greater. With smoking, alcohol, sex or driving, you need to reach the age of consent before we allow you to intentionally expose yourself to harm. If we have done it with smoking and drinking alcohol, why shouldn’t we do it for the risk of brain damage from repeated blows to the head?

Getting repeated blows to the head is more dangerous to the brain than alcohol. It’s more dangerous than smoking. So why do we continue to expose our children? As a modern society it’s our duty to protect our most vulnerable, most precious gifts of life: our children. This is where I stand.

RELATED: ‘League of Denial’ asks what did the NFL know about the concussion problem?

Many people see the concussion issue as posing an existential threat to the NFL. But at the same time, no matter what scandal and controversy erupts around the league — whether it’s this issue or domestic violence arrests or Deflategate — football only seems to get bigger.

I have an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. There is no organization in this world that is too big to fail. Look at big industries of the past: Look at Kodak, look at steel. In the good old days of the steel industry, nobody would have believed that steel could become a diminished industry.

We as a society evolve, and any business entity that refuses to evolve with the society because of some kind of self-considered arrogance will fall by the wayside. This is a very basic business concept.

Knowing what you know and having been through what you’ve been through, do you ever actually sit down and watch a football game?

The last football game I watched was the Super Bowl. After the first play, the hitting — pow! — I just had goose bumps. What was going through my mind was what was happening to their brains on the microscopic level.

I switched off the TV and did something else. I just couldn’t take it.

 http://zap2it.com/2016/01/dr-bennet-omalu-vs-the-nfl-im-not-anti-football/

BETTER LATE ,THAN 'THE LATE.....

Obama To Send 3,000 Military Forces To Fight Ebola In West Africa

 | By LAURAN NEERGAARD and JIM KUHNHENN

Posted: 09/16/2014 12:00 am EDT Updated: 09/16/2014 10:59 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could threaten security around the world, and he ordered 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region in emergency aid muscle for a crisis spiraling out of control.

The question was whether the aid would be enough and was coming in time. An ominous World Health Organization forecast said that with so many people now spreading the virus, the number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks.

"If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us," Obama said Tuesday after briefings in Atlanta with doctors and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University.

Obama called on other countries to join in quickly supplying more health workers, equipment and money. By day's end the administration asked Congress to shift another $500 million in Pentagon money to the effort, meaning the U.S. could end up devoting $1 billion to contain the outbreak.

"It's a potential threat to global security if these countries break down," Obama said, speaking of the hardest-hit nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. At least 2,400 people have died, with Liberia bearing the brunt. Nearly 5,000 people have fallen ill in those countries and Nigeria and Senegal since the disease was first recognized in March. WHO says it anticipates the figure could rise to more than 20,000, and the disease could end up costing nearly $1 billion to contain.

Obama described the task ahead as "daunting" but said there was hope in the fact that "the world knows how to fight this disease."

His expression grim, he described the "gut-wrenching" scene of a family in Liberia. The father had died, the mother was cradling a sick 5-year old, her 10-year-old was dying, too, and the family had reached a treatment center but couldn't get in.

"These men and women and children are just sitting, waiting to die, right now." Obama said. "And it doesn't have to be this way."

The U.S. is promising to deliver 17 hundred-bed treatment centers to Liberia, where contagious patients often sit in the streets, turned away from packed Ebola units. The Pentagon expects to have the first treatment units open within a few weeks, part of the heightened U.S. response that also includes training more local health care workers.

"This massive ramp-up of support from the United States is precisely the kind of transformational change we need to get a grip on the outbreak and begin to turn it around," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.

Doctors Without Borders, which has sounded the alarm for months, also welcomed the U.S. effort but said it must be put into action immediately — and that other countries must follow suit because the window to contain the virus is closing.

"The response to Ebola continues to fall dangerously behind, and too many lives are being lost," said Brice de le Vingne, the group's director of operations. "We need more countries to stand up, we need greater concrete action on the ground, and we need it now."

Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician who survived Ebola he contracted while working in Liberia, met with Obama at the White House Tuesday. He is one of three aid workers with Ebola who have been treated at Emory.

Later, he told a packed Senate hearing, "We must move quickly and immediately to deliver the promises that have been made."

CDC's Dr. Beth Bell told senators the outbreak is "ferocious and spreading exponentially."

"If we do not act now to stop Ebola, we could be dealing with it for years to come," she warned.

The U.S. already has spent more than $100 million fighting the outbreak. Obama administration officials said some of the costs of the new military response would be covered by $500 million in overseas contingency operations, such as the war in Afghanistan, that the Pentagon already has asked Congress to redirect for West Africa and for humanitarian assistance in Iraq. The Obama administration submitted a request to Congress late Tuesday to reprogram another $500 million in defense money for efforts against the disease.

Congress still must vote on an Obama administration request for $88 million more to help the Ebola fight, including funding CDC work in West Africa through December and speeding development of experimental treatments and vaccines.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said urgent action was needed. "We must take the dangerous, deadly threat of the Ebola epidemic as seriously as we take ISIS," he said, referring to the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

But some lawmakers questioned if the heightened U.S. response will be enough.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said, "My math says we're going to be behind the eight ball on Day 1 because we won't have enough beds."

An aid worker from Sierra Leone put a face on the region's desperation. Ishmeal Alfred Charles of Freetown told senators that as he prepared to leave home, his 10-year-old daughter asked, "They said there is no Ebola in America. Why can't you take us along?"

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Thursday on the crisis, and the head of the United Nations said the General Assembly will follow up with a high-level meeting next week as the world body "is taking the lead now" on the international fight.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Obama's plan, his spokesman said in a statement, and called on the international community "to be as bold and courageous in its response as those who are on the frontlines fighting this disease."

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the 3,000 troops would not provide direct care to Ebola patients. In addition to delivering the 17 treatment facilities, they will help train as many as 500 local health care workers a week. Among the other initiatives, the military will:

—Set up a headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, led by Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, head of U.S. Army Africa.

—Build a regional transportation and staging base in Senegal where the U.S. will help coordinate the contributions of other allies and partners.

—Provide home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, designed to help healthy people caring for Ebola-stricken family members. That includes 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver to Liberia this week.

—Carry out a home- and community-based campaign to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients.

In Monrovia, Boima Folley runs a sport materials shop and said he'd welcome the U.S. military response.

"We have been praying to get the disease wiped out of our country, so if the coming of U.S. troops will help us get that done, we should be happy," he said. "The soldiers don't have to have medical backgrounds."

___

Jim Kuhnhenn reported from Atlanta. AP writers Lolita Baldor and Jennifer C. Kerr in Washington and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia contributed to this report

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/obama-military-ebola-africa_n_5826864.html

Harvard students vote to ban bottled water

Sunday, December 15, 2013 by: PF Louis

  (NaturalNews) It's refreshing to see that college students are beginning to do more than merely protest against environmental and health-damaging issues pushed by corporate America. They're also going beyond pushing for labels and "co-existence." They've started to go for the economic throat of big business by banning certain toxic products from campuses, such as bottled water.

Though this story is based on a Harvard student body decision, as of early 2012, over 90 colleges and universities of varying sizes and types throughout the USA have banned or restricted bottled water sales as demanded from student-led referendums and lobbied directives. The motives are mostly ecological.

But there are also health issues directly related to using those plastic bottles and of course tap water. The offered solution is creating stations on campus that can effectively filter and process out those chemicals where students and faculty may refill glass or metal containers or even reusable plastic containers.

Those stations, which purify water with charcoal filtration and reverse osmosis, have become ubiquitous in health food stores and even standard supermarkets. Instead of spending a half-dollar to a dollar-and-a-half for a small bottle of water from multinational corporations that steal water from regions at no or low cost while reselling their bottled water for high profit margins, one can spend a quarter to a half-dollar for a gallon of water purified the same way those multinationals do, if they actually do purify their water at all.

By the way, Nestle seems to be the Monsanto of water. They want to own it all, and their CEO has stated that they have that right but public access to water is not a right. Here's more (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Sure, some bottles say they're from certain springs and so on. But usually they're from purified (maybe) tap water near or at a place called whatever springs. A few companies have been forced to admit this.

This is not to detract from actual mineral water sources, such as pricier Volvic water, which a scientist has assured contains silica with the right type of suspension to leach aluminum from the brain.

 Specific issues of disposable plastic bottled water toxins and their environmental impact

It's not just BPA (bisphenol-A) in malleable plastics that disrupts hormones as an estrogen mimicker. A recent German study found traces of several other toxic chemicals in bottled water as well as more substantial amounts of different chemical endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Excerpted from a recent Natural News article by staff writer Ethan Huff:

The study's published abstract explains that 13 of the 18 bottled water products tested exhibited "significant" anti-estrogenic activity, while 16 of the 18 samples were found to inhibit the body's androgen receptors by an astounding 90 percent.

Additionally, the other 24,520 chemical traces besides DEHF were also identified as exhibiting antagonistic activity, which means that they, too, are detrimental to the body's hormonal system. Here's more (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Then there's the issue of land fills, which is obviously an overburdened toxic hazard, and the Pacific's plastic waste island.

Well, it's not really an island the size of Texas or any other visible size. It's an estimate of the amount of plastic strewn throughout the Northern Pacific known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or the North Pacific Gyre (swirl; vortex).

It's more like a stretch of plastic garbage stew, containing particles that demand close observation to be noticed. But even without the graphic drama, its ocean-polluting hazards are real.

Banning one-time-use plastic bottled water is a great idea despite the cries of "anti-free market" from those who refuse to separate dangerous, greedy corporations from individuals.

The most viable healthy solution would be plastics from hemp, which is another topic for another time.

Learn more:

http://www.naturalnews.com/043252_Harvard_students_bottled_water_endocrine_disruptors.html#ixzz2nbs04y8z

original article

.......VERY NORMAL PEOPLE.......

The story behind "that selfie"

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron pose for a picture with Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt next to US First Lady Michelle Obama during the memorial service for South African former president Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg. (AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

  

By Roberto Schmidt

So here’s the photo, my photo, which quickly lit up the world’s social networks and news websites. The “selfie” of three world leaders who, during South Africa’s farewell to Nelson Mandela, were messing about like kids instead of behaving with the mournful gravitas one might expect.

In general on this blog, photojournalists tell the story behind a picture they’ve taken. I’ve done this for images from Pakistan, and India, where I am based. And here I am again, but this time the picture comes from a stadium in Soweto, and shows people taking a photo of themselves. I guess it’s a sign of our times that somehow this image seemed to get more attention than the event itself. Go figure.

Anyway, I arrived in South Africa with several other AFP journalists to cover the farewell and funeral ceremonies for Nelson Mandela. We were in the Soccer City stadium in Soweto, under a driving rain. I’d been there since the crack of dawn and when I took this picture, the memorial ceremony had already been going on for more than two hours.

From the podium, Obama had just qualified Mandela as a “giant of history who moved a nation towards justice." After his stirring eulogy, America’s first black president sat about 150 metres across from where I was set up. He was surrounded by other foreign dignitaries and I decided to follow his movements with the help of my 600 mm x 2 telephoto lens.

So Obama took his place amid these leaders who’d gathered from all corners of the globe. Among them was British Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as a woman who I wasn’t able to immediately identify. I later learned it was the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt. I’m a German-Colombian based in India, so I don’t feel too bad I didn’t recognize her! At the time, I thought it must have been one of Obama’s many staffers.

Anyway, suddenly this woman pulled out her mobile phone and took a photo of herself smiling with Cameron and the US president. I captured the scene reflexively. All around me in the stadium, South Africans were dancing, singing and laughing to honour their departed leader. It was more like a carnival atmosphere, not at all morbid. The ceremony had already gone on for two hours and would last another two. The atmosphere was totally relaxed – I didn’t see anything shocking in my viewfinder, president of the US or not. We are in Africa.

(AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

I later read on social media that Michelle Obama seemed to be rather peeved on seeing the Danish prime minister take the picture. But photos can lie. In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.

I took these photos totally spontaneously, without thinking about what impact they might have. At the time, I thought the world leaders were simply acting like human beings, like me and you. I doubt anyone could have remained totally stony faced for the duration of the ceremony, while tens of thousands of people were celebrating in the stadium. For me, the behaviour of these leaders in snapping a selfie seems perfectly natural. I see nothing to complain about, and probably would have done the same in their place. The AFP team worked hard to display the reaction that South African people had for the passing of someone they consider as a father. We moved about 500 pictures, trying to portray their true feelings, and this seemingly trivial image seems to have eclipsed much of this collective work.

(AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

It was interesting to see politicians in a human light because usually when we see them it is in such a controlled environment. Maybe this would not be such an issue if we, as the press, would have more access to dignitaries and be able to show they are human as the rest of us.

I confess too that it makes me a little sad we are so obsessed with day-to-day trivialities, instead of things of true importance.

During Mandela's memorial service in Johannesburg. (AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post%2FSelfie#.UqhYPjuLhyU.twitter

Real Peace

STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM... December 1, 1955

Pioneer of Civil Rights

Rosa Parks Biography

Rosa Parks Date of birth: February 4, 1913
Date of death: October 24, 2005
Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.
Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents' farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school's philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were."

Opportunities were few indeed. "Back then," Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, "we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone."

After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south.

"I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP," Mrs. Parks recalled, "but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn't seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens."
The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court Decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

In 1957, Mrs. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor.

After the death of her husband in 1977, Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.

When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, "I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet."

Mrs. Parks spent her last years living quietly in Detroit, where she died in 2005 at the age of 92. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She was the first woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
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Michael Jackson dies leaving legacy of award-winning music

Michael Jackson, who died today at age 50, ruled the music world throughout the 1980s, selling millions of records and concert tickets and dubbing himself the "King of Pop." And while Michael Jackson won multiple times at such popularity contests as the American Music Awards and the MTV Awards, he also earned the respect of his peers in the music industry with his 13 Grammy Awards.

After striking out on his own from the Jackson Five, Jackson won his first Grammy in 1980 for best R&B male vocal performance ("Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"). That track from his chart-topping "Off the Wall" album also contended for best disco recording.

"Thriller" – his second solo effort as an adult – was released in November 1982 and spent a record 37 weeks at No. 1, producing an unparalleled seven Top 10 singles. In March 1983, Jackson debuted his moonwalk dance to "Billie Jean" on the TV special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever." Michael Jackson earned an Emmy nod for best performance in a variety or music program. He lost to opera diva Leontyne Price for her concert with the New York Philharmonic on "Live From Lincoln Center."

At the Grammys in February 1984, Jackson shared in seven of the eight awards won by the album (the exception was for best engineered recording). Michael Jackson shared the wins for album of the year and producer of the year (non-classical) with "Thriller" collaborator Quincy Jones, who also produced his Grammy-winning children's recording "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial."

For the three chart-topping singles off the album, Jackson won Grammy Awards for male vocal performance in an unprecedented three genres – R&B ("Billie Jean"), rock ("Beat It") and pop ("Thriller"). He shared in the record of the year win for "Beat It" with the production team. And as the songwriter, he picked up a Grammy for penning the best R&B tune ("Billie Jean"). However, Sting's "Every Breath You Take" edged out two Jackson compositions – "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" – for song of the year.

Jackson's total of eight Grammy wins in one night broke the record set in 1965 by Roger Miller, who'd won six awards, most for the country hit "King of the Road." And the eight Grammys awarded to "Thriller" was another record haul as well. Both of these achievements were tied by Santana and the album "Supernatural" in 1999.

Michael Jackson won another Grammy the following year in the category of best video album for the film that documented the making of the landmark "Thriller" video. That $500,000, 14-minute video, directed by John Landis, told the story of a boy (Jackson) and girl enjoying a date until he turns into a singing, dancing werewolf.

In 1986, Jackson and Lionel Richie won the song of the year Grammy for the charity single "We Are the World," which also took home record of the year. As Jackson was one of the pioneers of the music video, it seems appropriate that the last two Grammys he won were for that medium. In 1989 he and his team won the short form video award for "Leave Me Alone" off his follow-up album "Bad." And in 1995 he and his sister Janet Jackson shared in the short form winning "Scream" from his double album "HIStory."

Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

"...RICE APPROVED TORTURE METHOD...."

Aaahh Now they have found the 'BAD GIRL'
in the group

BARACK OBAMA......MR PRESIDENT

Barack Obama has been sworn in as the 44th US president. Here is his inauguration speech in full.

Barack Obama made his speech in front of more than a million people

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

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