Concerning Las Vegas

Posted on October 5, 2017 by jeffroby

vegas01What drew me to the Uhuru movement was not a sophisticated study of the African People’s Socialist Party platform.  The formulation “No one lives at the expense of anyone else.  War against the corporations!  War against the System!” rang true, and made Uhuru worth checking out, to be sure.  But equally persuasive — I experienced at the Jesse/Akilé campaign kickoff rally — was the sense of collective strength and, well, just plain human warmth that filled the room, something so lacking in the rest of the nasty, petit-bourgeois U.S. left.  The decision to study Uhuru’s theoretical writing only followed from that.

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Reparations are alive!

Posted on August 16, 2017 by jeffroby

 

“A crime has been committed.  Reparations is the admission of that crime, one which shocks the conscience of the world.”

justiceSuch is the foundation of the campaigns that Eritha Akilé Cainion and Jesse Nevel are running as candidates for City Council District 6 and for Mayor of St. Petersburg, respectively.  They have forced reparations into the mainstream.  Still, scholars and legal experts want to keep Reparations their private reserve, some question whether using the term “reparations” is useful, and others argue that the term should be dropped altogether.

In the January 28, 2016 Black Agenda Report (BAR), managing editor Bruce A. Dixon had asked some of those questions:

“What would a serious discussion on reparations look like?  Will anybody ever come up with a realistic roadmap to get there, or is reparations talk just that — all talk?  Is reparations an answer to class politics, or is it the politics of a particular class?  And what if we fought for millions of new green jobs, rolling back the prison state, guaranteed annual income, decent housing and free education but didn’t call it ‘reparations’?” Continue reading →

Posted in green, politics, Uhuru | 2 Comments

League of Women Voters Debate

Posted on July 12, 2017 by jeffroby
out_organize 02

Kunde Mwamvite (l.) Gazi Kodzo standing.

ST. PETERSBURG, July 10, 2017 — It all comes together. Last year, the night of March 31, three Black girls — Laniya Miller (15), Ashaunti Butler (15), and Dominique Battle (16) — were picked up and offered a ride home. The man went into the South Side Walmart supposedly to “get a TV,” leaving the three to wait in the car.  He returned with a bag full of liquor bottles and some bad intentions.  The three fled in the car, which was never reported stolen.

Somehow it ended with a wild police chase led by Pinellas County Deputy Howard Skaggs, a known killer cop.  With the pursuing officers clocked at near 100 miles per hour, they forced the girls off the road and into a pond.  The officers waited on the shore while the girls drowned.  They died screaming.

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Uhurus Own the Ground

Posted on June 25, 2017 by jeffroby
tampa bay times

Jesse Nevel, candidate for Mayor of St. Petersburg, challenges the Tampa Bay Times.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL, June 22, 2017 — “My name is Jesse Nevel, and I m a candidate for Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida.” So began Jesse Nevel, who will be on the August 29 primary ballot in the supposedly non-partisan race. He was addressing a crowd of 50 supporters on the sidewalk outside the St. Pete headquarters of the Tampa Bay Times.

But you wouldn’t know it from reading the Times, whose shoddy and dishonest coverage they were gathered to protest on this hot Thursday morning.  The Tampa Bay Times, the Bay News 9 TV station, and the St. Petersburg College will be hosting a St. Petersburg mayoral debate on July 25 at the Palladium Theater.  Nevel has been completely shut out of the proceeding.

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This is not a campaign. This is a movement!

Posted on June 10, 2017 by jeffroby

hurricane movement

ST. PETERSBURG, FL, June 6, 2017 — We are young! We are Black! We are Green!  We are Red!  We are a movement!  That was the message from the diverse crowd of 50 gathered on the steps of City Hall for the two Uhuru candidates, Jesse Nevel for Mayor, and Eritha Akilé Cainion for City Council District 6

“For the first time in the history of St. Pete, radical solutions are on the ballot for radical times,” was the message Akilé delivered back to her and Nevel’s supporters.  She and Nevel had just handed in their filing papers to the St. Pete city clerk, placing them on the non-partisan August 29 primary ballot.  Now the campaign was officially on.

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Posted in green, politics, Uhuru | 1 Comment

Pinellas Greens at St. Pete City Hall Rally for Uhuru Slate

Posted on June 6, 2017 by jeffroby

Rose Roby speaking on behalf of the Pinellas County Green Party in front of St. Pete City Hall at today’s press conference for Jesse Nevel for Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida and Eritha Akile Cainion for Councilwoman for District 6. WE ARE WINNING!

rose speaks reparations

Rose Roby speaks out on Reparations.

“So today, I today say that the Pinellas County Green Party, we are leading the way not just in Florida, but in this entire United States, to say the Green Party is the party of unity through reparations, we are the party behind reparations, we are going to pay our debt! That’s why the Green Party is prepared to knock on every door, to call on every registered voter in St. Petersburg. And we are going to put Jesse Nevel and Akilé Cainion into City Hall and give City Hall back to the people. We are going to win!”

— Jeff Roby
June 6, 2017

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Syria — U.S. Hoists the False Flag

Posted on April 7, 2017 by jeffroby

pirateFlag88

“I will give propagandistic cause for the release of the war, whether convincing or not.  The winner is not asked later whether he said the truth or not.”

— Hitler to his generals, August 22, 1939

It started out with dead Polish soldiers, or at least their uniforms were Polish.  The bodies were strewn around a German radio station, and the story went that that they had snuck into Germany from Poland, seized the station and broadcast an anti-German message, only to be cut down by heroic German soldiers defending their sacred soil.  Such an outrage could not go unpunished.  On September 1, 1939, the Nazi divisions rolled over the Polish border and the war was on. Continue reading →

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Homelessness — Human Rights supersede Civil Rights

Posted on March 22, 2017 by jeffroby

homeless BofR

For decades, fighters for social justice have been fighting for our civil rights.  Many of these invaluable battles have been successful, grounded in the promises set forth in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.  We have had victories too numerous to mention.  We have hit a wall.  Thus in St. Petersburg, Florida, the city ran roughshod over the rights of the homeless.  They were sued.  The homeless won.  The homeless still live in misery.

A typical victory says:

“No person’s rights, privileges, or access to public services may be denied or abridged solely because he or she is homeless. Such a person shall be granted the same rights and privileges as any other resident of this state.” Continue reading →

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Indignation is not Courage. Outrage is not Brains.

Posted on February 1, 2017 by jeffroby
The Old Guard.

The Old Guard.

By most accounts, that Napoleon was a pretty smart fellow.  Riding the crest of the energy unleashed by the French Revolution, he revolutionized how war was fought.  Year after year, La Grande Armée laid low the feudal armies arrayed against him.  His Napoleonic Code established a New World Order.

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Posted in fascism, green, politics, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

We, too, are “Deplorables”

Posted on December 18, 2016 by jeffroby

wv-voter02

— An Interview with Don DeBar, conducted by Rose Roby

Don DeBar is a highly-respected broadcast journalist and a courageous leader and former candidate for the Green Party.  As Senior Producer at Community Public Radio CPR News (CPR), he has taken a strong stand against U.S. imperialism and is an outspoken advocate for social justice of every kind.  In 2010, he was among more than 100 activists and journalists from a variety of organizations, religious groups and media outlets who attended a New York gathering with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the face of an incendiary media campaign that tried to silence them.

Don DeBar.

Don DeBar.

Now, the so-called “fake news” hysteria is again ushering in a new McCarthyism, with calls for silencing free political speech and for shutting down access to alternative news sites.  Following a recent trip to Havana, Mr. DeBar was locked out of his Facebook account based upon allegations of “suspicious activity.”  He has been informed that the only way to reinstate his account is to provide Facebook with sensitive documentation.  We will not allow him to be silenced.

Jill Stein’s Recount debacle has gone out with a whimper — no recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Trump actually gaining 162 votes in Wisconsin.  But the media campaign to delegitimize Trump’s presidency — if not to actually overturn it — screeches on.  Amid rising hysteria over Russian hacking already at fever pitch, part 2 of this interview with Don DeBar (see here for part 1) continues with his remarks on the past election and the political terrain that is starting to take shape.

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Posted in fascism, green, politics, St. Petersburg Independents | 1 Comment