Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad

"Freedom is not free. It's a constant struggle"

 
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OPINION - Published,
People's Weekly World Newspaper

March 5, 2005

According to a Feb. 8 Christian Science Monitor report by Alexandra Marks, “The number of homeless vets is rising, in part because of high housing costs and gaps in pay.”

A picture in the Feb. 19–25 edition of the PWW shows a homeless veteran examining a rack of used clothes. The caption notes that nationwide there are some 275,000 homeless vets. This is nearly equal to 15 standard army divisions of 18,000 soldiers each at full combat strength. As Joel Wendland reports in the same issue, the Bush-Rumsfeld orchestrated Pentagon and its congressional buddies maintain that benefits for veterans must be slashed because such benefits “hurt” national security. They want to cut $15 billion from vets benefits over a 10-year period, starting with over $900 million in 2005.

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SJ Super-Delegates Jump on Board Obama Train

IT’S A GOOD THING, BUT LET’S MAINTAIN A SENSE OF CAUTION

Are Mayor Gwen Faison and Senator Dana Redd jumping out in front of the voters in their constituency for a change or merely following D. Norcross, the big boss' brother as he allies himself with Obama. Looks like George himself is behind the shift. What about Rob Andrews? Will we hear from him momentarily?

We know the super-delegates are lining up around the nation. It's a pragmatic thing --- these super-delegates jockeying into position --- in getting set for the next campaign phase before Ohio, Texas and such, onto the Mile High City convention.

While South Jersey Democratic unity is important and the Norcross crew's endorsement must finally be seen as a positive step in the right direction, there are concerns. On the face of it, the endorsement is a good thing, but discerning folk absolutely must maintain a healthy sense of arms length caution.
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Dem, Republican face similar hurdles in congressional races


Monday February 18, 2008
By David Levinsky Burlington County Times staff writer
dlevinsky@phillyBurbs.com


Dale Glading and Joshua Zeitz have vastly different political views.
Glading, a former Cinnaminson resident now living in the Camden County town of Barrington, is a staunch Republican conservative who believes the federal government should take a strong stand on national defense and border security and a more hands-off approach to business, health-care and social issues.
Zeitz, a Bordentown City resident, is a Democrat who believes U.S. troops should be brought home from Iraq and the government should take steps to ensure affordable health care to all Americans.
While their politics are vastly different, the two men have something in common: Both are trying to unseat longtime Congressional incumbents.


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More of What I believe:

 

I think it's just great that  Puerto Ricans get to have a huge say in the primary race for the presidency. I  know many (who advance the idea of statehood) may wish that the same was true  for the general election in the fall. But because of Puerto Rico's peculiar  status as a commonwealth (some would hold as America's colony) there's no  chance for a general election vote. A re-evaluation of the island's status, via  plebiscite must take place before this happens.
 
As an outsider I must be careful here, but I think there are benefits to  the commonwealth status that may not happen if statehood were to be achieved.  One such benefit concerns the continued promulgation of the Spanish language and  teaching of Spanish culture that may be hurt with a move to statehood. Voting in  presidential elections is a benefit but not the huge benefit that some may  think. On the other hand, many islanders and folk here on the mainland still  have the spirit of independence in their hearts. The call for  Puerto Rico Libre is still there and just will  not die a happy death because at base many still desire a liberty that was  snatched away in 1898 when the U.S. flag was planted at El Moro.
 
I lived in Puerto Rico for 3 years while stationed at Ramey Air Force Base  in Aquadilla back in the late 1960's. I attended college classes at  Inter-American University in San German where I studied Latin American history  and the history of black enslavement and gross Taino Indian genocide (both true  crimes against humanity of the gravest sort) in the early American adventures of  the Iberian conquistadors. I learned a lot about the meaning of African  enslavement by studying the histories of cities like Ponce, P.R., Santo Domingo  (in the Dominican Republic), and Santiago de Cuba --- all huge slave ports where  blacks were imported from West African kingdoms and re-sold throughout the Spanish Main.
 
I remember reading about El Grito de Lares and the fight to end black enslavement in Puerto Rico which also became a fight for general independence  from Spain. An effort led by such heroic leaders as Lola Rodriquez Tio, Ramon  Betances, Eugenio Hostos and others who may have remembered the inspiration  for liberation of Rafael Cordero. Later after the 1898 American imposition and imperialist takeover of Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico --- under the  independista leadership of El Maestro, Don Pedro Albeizu Campos (who was a  mulatto of mixed black and white heritage), the struggle proceeds on to this day. Meanwhile, the magnificent work of the Afro-Rican  bibliophile of Harlem, NYC --- Arturo Schomberg --- has left its mark on Black  American History celebrations across America and has, at the same time, reminded  black
 
So you see Don Pedro Albeizu Campos and his Cuban counterpart Antonio Maceo  are true heroes to conscious black Americans who are aware of how our own black  history transcends national boundaries and must include the Afro-Spanish,  Afro-Brazilians (and Afro-Dutch, Afro-French and others of the African diaspora)  who number over 200 million souls all over Latin America.
 
That the Chicano population is much larger than the Puerto Ricans is a fact  long known. Of late the arrival of more and more Mexican immigrants and guest  worker (documented or otherwise) has added to any inter-ethnic (Hispanic)  tensions that may have accumulated over time. This is not merely a matter  between Puerto Ricans and Mexican American. The resolution to this question must  also be part of the larger dialog on inter-ethnic, inter-racial and inter-class  relations in America.
 
That America is a multi-national and multi-cultural state has not yet  made much of an impression upon official thinking, at least as regards  inter-tribal power sharing on any equitable basis. The old guard white or  Euro-American power elites have not yet seen fit to engage in the face to  face that will lead to tomorrow's tomorrows. However, with the Obama campaign  the status-quo ante may be changing before our eyes.
 
It is my hope that his campaign has opened up a new front for more fruitful  interactions about the mutual concerns we have. Let this be our prayer as he and  Senator Hillary Clinton push forward in Puerto Rico.
 
For justice and peace before dawn ...
 
Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad, 5.26.2008

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I am for “fair trade”. Free trade as in NAFTA is a ploy to keep global corporations rich while subverting the economies of weaker nations and grossly exploiting productive labor, while hurting the rights of workers at home and abroad.

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As soon as I am sworn into my House seat I intend to keep my pledge to roll back the tax cuts for wealthier Americans implemented by the Bush Administration.

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The organized and collective power of working people in America must be elevated to equal status with the owners and managers of productive industries. Why? Because it is the workers themselves whose labor produces the very wealth the owners and managers seem to think they have produced. Yet, it is the workers who get the very least in compensation for their hard effort, while the owners and management reap the harvest.

·    My father was a packinghouse worker and organizer. In 1981 I helped organize a Salt Lake City, UT contingent of 500 marchers in a regional inter-mountain Solidarity March in Denver, Colorado called by the national AFL-CIO to criticize the Reagan administration’s attack on labor, the rise of the labor Solidarity Movement in Poland and the breaking of the PATCO Air Controller’s union

I am a longtime friend of labor as well as an active member and leader in my own local teacher’s union, as an elected alternate delegate to the 2003 and 2005 National Education Association’s annual assemblies (Camden Educational Association and Rutgers University-Camden American Federation of Teachers Union, Adjunct Instructors.

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I live and teach in Camden , New Jersey , a small city of 80,000 plus souls that is frequently mentioned as either the poorest or one of the poorest cities in America . My main solution to helping Camden’s impoverished would be to redirect billions in military and Pentagon related spending on wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) and preparation for wars of aggression to spending on rebuilding places like Camden and guaranteeing the poor new jobs with living wages and homes that are adequate and not dilapidated.

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I am endorsing Congressman Conyers, HR 676, the National Health Insurance/"Expanded and Improved Medicare-for-All" Act. To guarantee comprehensive health care for all. I support the replacement of the current profit-driven system, with a publicly financed, privately provided health care program.

This "Medicare for All" national plan would save more than $350 billion per year, enough new money to provide guaranteed comprehensive health care for all. This system would insure portable and uniform benefits regardless of income. With no deductibles or co-pays, this plan would encourage preventive care and restore a doctor and patient controlled health care system affording choice of providers and fair, publicly negotiated payment for both treatment and medication.

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No issue reveals more clearly the flaws of the U.S. political-economic system than global warming - the dominance of greed and corporate power over the public good, and the near-sighted focus on the short-term over the welfare of future generations. It is known that the U.S. has the natural resources to power the entire country solely from clean, “alternative” sources of power- whether with solar cells that would require a miniscule fraction of the California desert, or from wind turbines on the Great Plains and in the Great Lakes.

It has also often been said that we need a new Apollo Program for clean energy (if not Manhattan Project), in which science, industry and government would cooperate on a crash course to produce novel results in a limited period. Immediate action would include raising the auto fuel economy and impose mandatory caps on carbon pollution while investing in public transportation, energy conservation technologies and alternative energy development--in the process, creating new jobs which pay well.

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(continued Don't Tie Camden's Economic Recovery to Pentagon Contractors)

But I want good jobs with peace at union scale wages for those at or near the bottom of the South Jersey economic heap. I really do want to create a middle class, first from among the oppressed sectors of people in Camden Cityand its environs.

According to camdennewjersey.org Camden’s poverty rate is 32.8% The unemployment rate is three times the New Jersey and national average. Per capita income in the city is under $10,000, Over 45% of Camden residents receive some form of public assistance.

I also want an end to wars of aggression as in Iraq and I want deep cuts in Pentagon spending. This may sound strange coming from a Vietnam era U.S. Air Force veteran, but for me the best way to support our valiant troops in Iraqis to stop the war, bring them home now and move them out of harm's way. Once back home maybe they could be re-trained to work in unionized industries that provide for our people's many and varied domestic needs. Re-training or quality education of oppressed sectors could be financed by the cuts made in the Pentagon death budget.

I am for the ways of peace and thus opposed to increased Pentagon spending for advanced weapons and equipment. I see Pentagon related defense contractor profit taking as problematic no matter how it’s packaged --- in this case as a major tool of salvation in Camden's economic recovery. Many area leaders in business and the public sector are pleased that Camden is becoming "a player in a surprising industry: defense" says a bold headline in a January 19th Newsday.com article.

From the prison-industrial complex of a few years back, to the growing military-university-technological complex of today. Is this Camden's economic fate? Does it have to be or are there real economic alternatives?

Actually, the presence in Camden City of defense contractors has done almost nothing to help drive down the city's poverty, joblessness and other economic ills. That defense contractor pay rolls have added 700 jobs in six years is not saying much especially since the 700 jobs require a highly technical work force. Moreover, most of the technically skilled workers hired at these establishments do not live or spend much of their earnings in Camden. No CamdenCity middle class is being created by their presence.

Even in the face of an emergent defense contracting industry, Camden’s vital economic statistics remain utterly grim. According to camdennewjersey.org Camden’s poverty rate is 32.8% The unemployment rate is three times the New Jersey and national average. Per capita income in the city is under $10,000,

Over 45% of Camden residents receive some form of public assistance. Yet, military equipment publications like Jane's International Defence Review, estimate the cost of only one Navy Virginia-class nuclear submarine is $2.6 billion or over 5 times what it costs to run Camden City's budget and its schools. The cost of one of the US Navy’s three new CVN-21 aircraft carriers is $12 billion and one new DD (X) destroyer is $3.4 billion or a total of $15 billion plus. The U.S. Air Force Missile Defense system’s cost is $10.4 billion. Tests of this system keeps failing --- and on and on … while Camden and inner-cities across America fail.

I think Camden's economic recovery ought to be based on life-enhancing, green type industries like those being proposed in the Apollo Alliance. The Alliance is a national labor union, environmentalist, business, church and peace group sponsored coalition that aims to build new industries, offer new job opportunities to poor communities, help in the recovery of old rust-belt industrial towns and do it all with a clean environment in mind.

Camden and this whole shore line of the Delaware River from the Betsy Ross down to the Commodore Barry needs an area-wide economic initiative that relies on technologies that produce for peaceful purposes, rather than production for war and death. Called such an initiative the Delaware River East Green Line Project or whatever. It would be a wonderful and productive way to turn area economic fortunes around. Maybe we can get the Apollo Alliance people an office or floor at the Waterfront Technological Center.

Because of Camden's need for an economic about-face, I like the Apollo Alliance sponsored ideas that the City of Oakland, California and three other East Bay cities laid out in their recently announced formation of the East BayGreen Corridor Partnership, together with leaders of the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The partnership’s ambitious goals: to build “the heart of the East Bay into a dynamic Green Corridor” and “to lead the world in environmental innovation, emerging green business and industry, green jobs, and renewable energy.”

As you may know Oakland is a city with a multitude of urban ills not unlike the problems facing Camden. Poverty, high unemployment, on-going local depression like economic statistics and the "racial wealth divide" are operative out there as well as back here. The other East bay cities that form the Green Corridor Partnership are Berkeley, Richmond and Emeryville. These towns may be likened to the inner-suburbs of Pennsauken, Riverton and Gloucester City.

Towns located near the Delaware River with their own unique economic needs. Congressman Rob Andrews, my opponent in the 1st District, wonders if his constituency, including residents of Camden City "can get a quality education" in order to qualify for good paying defense contractor jobs. Andrews who, according to a the same Newsday.com article "became a proponent of trying to get private businesses to create military uses out of commercial technology" obviously is not concerned about using university research and industry advances in technology for peaceful purposes. Nor does he seem to mind that upstart high tech military contractors seem to have little or no loyalty to staying in Camden once they get on their feet.

In his quest to grow big profits, Brad Blumberg, CEO of a defense contracting firm called Smarter Agent, apparently could care less about Camden's recovery fortunes. Rep. Andrews, instead of praising this escapist and disloyal to Camden CEO, should engage Blumberg's start up company in at least a dialogue about showing the proper corporate etiquette toward the public that assists his company with cozy "corporate welfare" breaks. After all Blumberg's start up firm enjoys the incomparable benefits of being housed in a brand new public facility funded by the citizens of Camden and New Jersey at the Waterfront Technology Center, a project of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

What if the universities --- one of which is Rutgers-Camden where I teach African American philosophy and religion courses --- that are now locating in Camden City could become like U. Cal. at Berkeley and use their academic and research capacities to help my proposed Green Line Project to get off the ground. Since the new national energy bill passed last December, and supported by Rep. Andrews, only allocates a miserly $125 million for work force training for new green jobs, I would call for at least a $1 billion in funds to educate inner-city and inner-suburban students and workers to take jobs in the new green industries.

I am certain that our leaders are aware that quality vocational and academic education to uplift economically oppressed sectors requires a corresponding quality level of investment of public funds. Increased levels of funding for inner-city or urban education, with the goal of producing good paying jobs for peaceful purposes, would be a sound corrective to those who continue to vaguely “wonder if people in Camden can get a quality education”.

An alliance of business leaders, unions, environmental, religious and peace-justice groups, now that's the green American way to 21st century economic prosperity. That's the real ticket to Camden's recovery and the development of older river communities up and down our part of the eastern shore of the DelawareRiver.

 

Dr. Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad, January 21, 2007

Mahdi Ibn Ziyad for Congress PO Box 1906 Camden, NJ 08101 856.655.9488; fax 856.964.5661