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January 1, 2008 - Another Haitian Independence Day under occupation by Marguerite Laurent, Dec. 31, 2007
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Ezili's HLLN Endorses Barack Obama

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Wi Nou Kapab (Yes We Can) - Barak Obama Commercial to Haitian-Americans
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Yes We Can

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Sam Cooke - It's Been A Long Time Coming...But Change Gonna Come

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Obama-mania is Unnerving

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What Haitian-Americans Ask the US Congress and of the New U.S. President
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After Bobby Kennedy (Barack Obama)
by John Pilger, May 29, 2008
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HLLN Recommended Links on "critical" support for Obama
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Bill Fletcher on Obama

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1804 Independence Proclamation of Haiti's Founding Father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines "....if they find asylum amongst us, they will be once more the schemers of our troubles and our divisions."
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Kanga Mundele: Our mission to live free or die trying, Another Haitian Independence Day under occupation
by Marguerite Laurent, Haitian Perspectives, January 1, 2006



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October 17, 2007 - Ezili Dantò's Note on the current situation in Haiti
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Eyewitness account of the abduction of President and First Lady Aristide of Haiti by the United States Special Forces

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Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!


 




Bon Ane 2008! - Mèm Amou
Year Message from President Jean Bertrand Aristide
from Petroria, South Africa|(in Kreyol) | Dec., 2007(mp3 audio)

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Action Guide to help Barack OBAMA win the election

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Video - The Obama Song (World of Friends): Bridges for Obama

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I Don't Know this America...But I'm Most Happy to Meet It
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To subscribe, write to erzilidanto@yahoo.com
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zilibuttonCarnegie Hall
Video Clip
No other national
group in the world
sends more money
than Haitians living
in the Diaspora
Red Sea- audio

The Red Sea


Ezili Dantò's master Haitian dance class (Video clip)

zilibuttonEzili's Dantò's
Haitian & West African Dance Troop
Clip one - Clip two


So Much Like Here- Jazzoetry CD audio clip

Ezili Danto's

Witnessing
to Self

zilibutton
Update on
Site Soley

RBM Video Reel

Haitian
immigrants
Angry with
Boat sinking
A group of Haitian migrants arrive in a bus after being repatriated from the nearby Turks and Caicos Islands, in Cap-Haitien, northern Haiti, Thursday, May 10, 2007. They were part of the survivors of a sailing vessel crowded with Haitian migrants that overturned Friday, May 4 in moonlit waters a half-mile from shore in shark-infested waters. Haitian migrants claim a Turks and Caicos naval vessel rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Dessalines' Law
and Ideals

Breaking Sea Chains


Little Girl
in the Yellow
Sunday Dress

Anba Dlo, Nan Ginen
Ezili Danto's Art-With-The-Ancestors Workshops - See, Red, Black & Moonlight series or Haitian-West African

Clip one -Clip two
ance performance
zilibutton In a series of articles written for the October 17, 2006 bicentennial commemoration of the life and works of Dessalines, I wrote for HLLN that: "Haiti's liberator and founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets of the Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he was assassinated by the Mullato sons of France. That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust - organized exclusion of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite - continues (with Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue to resist the return of despots, tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority in Haiti from sharing in the country's wealth and assets." (See also, Kanga Mundele: Our mission to live free or die trying, Another Haitian Independence Day under occupation; The Legacy of Impunity of One Sector-Who killed Dessalines?; The Legacy of Impunity:The Neoconlonialist inciting political instability is the problem. Haiti is underdeveloped in crime, corruption, violence, compared to other nations, all, by Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent
     
No other national group in the world sends more money than Haitians living in the Diaspora
 
 
 
 
 







 


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"...Go after the Respondeat Superior...Category One, the imperialist...*Besides Castrated Category Zero (the black middlemen) would not be human if they didn't resent their humiliating servility, dependency and castration; didn't resent being the public face of all the repugnancy of their white imperialist bosses but never having these bosses touched or revealed for what they are because racism, and its various levels of oppression and exploitation, assures that it is only black folk and the economic black elites not their white brethens who are "barbaric," "rapacious" and "morally repugnant"; didn't resent the role of preserving the economic power of the whites by trading their souls, identities, their own country, heritage and peoples only for personal gain that, in the larger picture, is mere menial world economic power and only symbolic political power."
(See, The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti, its creeds, values and struggle - Not primarily a class struggle: Comments inspired by Gutiérrez' post on Haiti)
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Ezili Danto's Note: I first wrote this piece on December 31, 2005. It's in our archives at https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/ezilidanto/2005 - 12/msg00009.html).


Today, December 31, 2007, I see no need to completely rewrite this New Years-Independence Day Haiti message. We are still spending another Haitian independence day under occupation. The December 31, 2005 essay is as applicable for January 1, 2008, as it was for January 1, 2006. Different Haitians are dying, in jail and being abused, raped and slaughtered. We are now under UN occupation instead of little Bush's imposed Boca Raton regime and this past year the anti-Aristide film, Ghost of Site Soley made it to major theaters, blockbusters and the internet (Youtube) and thus must be countered. Other than this, the changes made for this essay to fit the current situation in Haiti on January 1, 2008 are minimal. I hope next year not to find this essay still an applicable template. Happy Birthday Haiti (January 1, 1804 to January 1, 2008). We shall fight from one generation to the next.

(1804 Independence Proclamation of Haiti's Founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines "....if they find asylum amongst us, they will be once more the schemers of our troubles and our divisions.")

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January 1, 2008 - Another Haitian independence day under occupation

Back on January 1, 1804 Euro/US barbarity and savagery received its greatest blow in the Western Hemisphere. Haitians have been stigmatized and forced to pay with their life and freedom for that achievement ever since.

Tomorrow, January 1, 2008, marks Haiti's freedom day.

Oceans of our blood have poured and watered the soil to nourish civilized co-existence on this planet earth and continues, this very minute, to soak the earth needlessly simply because Haitians were the first to counter, in combat, Euro/US biological fatalism, destroy its myth of white superiority, and to do what even Spartacus could not.

How should Haitians mark this anniversary? Who should we confer with about our awesome burden, our plight, our long struggle to be treated as human beings by the Euro/US settlers?

Who should we approach about the 110 UN soldiers from Sri Lanka caught sexually abusing and raping under age Haitian children and turning Haiti into a brothel for foreign officialdom’s gleeful perversions? Who should we approach about this International occupation holding our people hostage. About the UN soldiers' massacres, rapes of our women and repression of Haiti's defenseless poor? About the lies of the mainstream media and awful anti-Aristide propaganda in so-called 'documentaries' like the Ghost of Site Soley?

In this documentary, Eleonore “Lele” Senlis, there in Haiti, like the UN Sri Lankan soldiers to offer ‘humanitarian’ assistance and ‘relief,’ has herself filmed, lustfully leering at not one naked young Haitian male, but two Haitian brothers. Her cameraman pans to them, each in turn, washing their genitalia sections in preparation to sexually service this so-called ‘relief’ worker. (Go to 1:38 minutes into Part 5). In the case of the brother 2Pac, he is filmed entirely naked. Then the camera, - the so-called “documentary?" camera - pans to the Frenchwoman lurking behind a curtain, fully dressed in white privilege and a lecherous grin. (Go to 8:05 minutes into Part 6). Eleonore Senlis was then an HIV/Aid education worker heading a large NGO in Haiti. But, she is filmed bringing the ghetto chiefs drugs or "medicine," getting Bily's soldiers to doctors when they've been shot, giving Bily money as he lies in his bed with her alongside ("This is for you. Don't spend it on girls" she says. - Go to 2:13 minutes into Part 5).

In the film, the Frenchwoman says she "...honestly admire more Bily than 2Pac. I think in his heart. He wants to do good for Site Soley" (Go to 3:13 minutes into Part 5). This footage hints at how the raw footage of this film was cleverly cut and edited by Asger Leth to construct his slick anti-Aristide propaganda. Because we hear the Frenchwoman say she admires Bily more than 2Pac, but her words are NOT WRITTEN in the captions. The film conspires to magnify 2Pac's nihilism, but instead his disillusionment, young macho bravado, vulnerability, cry for help and understandable insecurities shine through. It emphasizes 2Pac's bitterness against the Aristide administration and "as truth" Bily's violent nature. But falls short of making these cases altogether, despite all the clever Leth's editing efforts. What we are left with is simply two sad brothers living under unspeakable human poverty and all sorts of deprivations and how a Frenchwoman, who found asylum with them in Site Soley, Haiti, added to their misery, entered to brazenly strum odious brotherly rivalry - fratricide. A perfect colonial blueprint. (See, 1804 Independence Proclamation of Haiti's Founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines "....if they find asylum amongst us, they will be once more the schemers of our troubles and our divisions.")

For, as her protective camera rolls, the Frenchwoman publicly emasculates the powerless, dependent but pro-Aristide Brother Bily, telling him: "...Since not long, since a few days, I have some guy. But the guy is your brother. OK. So that's the situation now...I'm not joking." (Go to 8:58 minutes into Part 6). Both brothers, 2Pac and Bily are now dead. Bily was disappeared on December 1, 2005 as the anti-Aristide Boca Raton regime (allied to the US/France/Canada-supported Guy Philippe/Jean Tatoune/Louis Jodel Chanblain death squad thugs that this so-called "documentary" portrays, in the end, as "liberators of Haiti") shot 107 prisoners point blank while still in their cells at the UN-“guarded” Haitian National Penitentiary. The brothers' small children have been left, as most of the 2004 coup d'etat victims, penniless and fatherless. But France, like Canada and the US are happy with Haiti now. For the first time in history, a French president is scheduled to land in Haiti. The Frenchwoman, Eleonore Senlis moves on. Perhaps next to sell her wares and add more Black scalps to her belt in some poor country in Africa? No?

How do we get justice?
Who do we tell about the 107 poor Haitian prison detainees shot dead by Boniface/Latortue prison guards, some while still in their jail cells back in 2005; the Site Soley massacres, the IOM/USAID soccer match massacres, the Machete Army slaughters, the imprisonment of Haiti's children, just because they are homeless, live in poor neighborhoods or upset some big-men wearing French boots on Dessaline's soil; their tiny souls just yearning to be set free, to see their mothers, to eat a decent meal instead of enduring soul disfigurement by being locked up for just existing? How should we Haitians, who still live and breathe free, fight on for ourselves, our children, for those who don't?

In the book, Two Thousand Seasons, Ayi Kwei Armah writes:
".... How have we come to be mere mirrors to annihilations? For whom do we aspire to reflect our people's death? For whose entertainment shall we sing our agony? In what hopes? That the destroyers, aspiring to extinguish us, will suffer conciliatory remorse at the sight of their own fantastic success? The last imbecile to dream such dreams is dead, killed by the saviors of his dreams...."

And so, it is an exercise in futility to go to the perpetrators and executors of human rights crimes in Haiti in hopes of getting justice for our people. Those who oustered the constitutional government of Haiti and rendered the Preval/Alexi government mere puppets of these international profiteers; the UN who acts as proxy to maintain this international crime, the Haitian lackeys and their State Department masters, are dead inside and cannot hear the cries of the Haitian masses. It's not their mission or mandate. For, they don't represent life, liberty, democracy, development and decency, but its opposite. This Officialdom, this authority rains death, despotism, destruction, cruelty, inhumanity, injustice and represent all that civilized peoples worldwide struggle to overcome. They write laws, but are too "high tech" to live them. They mouth words of "justice" and fairness but their words are DEAD.

To further quote Ghanaian writer, Ayi Kwei Armah: "Those utterly dead, never again to awake, such is their muttering."

See, for yourself, my people, Canada's recent mutterings on the state of affairs in Haiti:

"The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement offering the best wishes of the Government and people of Canada to the people of Haiti as they mark their country’s Independence Day on January 1.


“As Haiti celebrates its national day, we are reminded of the progress the country has made, particularly in terms of security and in the political arena. Institutions at all levels are led by elected officials dedicated to rebuilding their country on the foundations of good governance and the rule of law.

“Canada’s efforts in Haiti are a compelling example of how we can work in our own neighborhood, the Americas, to help countries struggling to make a better life for their people. We are proud to maintain a close relationship with the Haitian government and to provide the resources the country needs to continue implementing an effective and transparent machinery of government. This in turn helps foster economic opportunity, improve security and advance our fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

“It is against this backdrop of optimism that Canada warmly welcomes the strong partnership that has developed between our two countries—a partnership we look forward to continuing.”
(See, Canada Congratulates the People of Haiti on the Occasion of their Independence Day, December 31, 2007, No. 188 http://news.gc.ca/web/view/en/index.jsp?
articleid=370759&categoryid=16
).

But as you read Canada's bare-faced, immoral lies masking the truth, recall that in 2003, another Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs hosted a secret meeting in Ottawa, where Canada joined in with the US, France, OAS and the Roger Noreiga-ilks of this world to plan the destruction of Haiti's democracy, security and its entire political landscape, committing to replace it militarily with what we have in Haiti today, a Western-run UN protectorate. (See The Ottawa Initiative: Canadian Officials Initiate Planning for Military Ouster of Aristide - http://www.margueritelaurent.com/law/ottawai.html ).

Such a 'neighborly' Canadian effort, resulted in the slaughter of more than 10,000 Haitians between 2004 and 2006, the imprisonment of over 4,000, the hunting down of hundreds of thousands of Lavalas pro-democracy partisans in Haiti and the forceful deportation/exiling of over 20,000 Haitians, including Haiti's duly elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide. This ‘neighborly’ Canada, like the rest of the Euro/US world are countries that REFUSED to celebrate Haiti's bicentennial and independence and wouldn't deign to formally wish a FREE HAITI good wishes back on January 1, 2004, on the occasion of Haiti’s 200th-year anniversary. But this year, in 2008, when Haiti is under occupation and with the successful implementation of Canada’s Ottawa Initiative, this is when Canada wishes Haiti “Happy independence day” with a straight face! (See, Canada Congratulates the People of Haiti on the Occasion of their Independence Day, December 31, 2007 - http://news.gc.ca/web/view/en/index.jsp?
articleid=370759&categoryid=16
)

The Boca Raton regime that Canada, the United State and France upheld instead of Haiti's democracy, from 2004 to 2006, is known only for its barbarity, corruption; its signing of massive loan packages to the World Bank, IMF and other such international financial institutions, in preparation for the massive privatization being legitimized under the current Preval puppet government. But such economic tyranny and human rights nightmares and the occupation that Haiti lives under today appears to be what the Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier refers to, in the release, as "..economic opportunity, improve security" and the advancement of Canada's "fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

In this "New World", according to such Canadian "fundamental values" it seems that tyranny, occupation and economic exploitation of Haiti's poor is defined as "progress" that is worthy of international support - of Canada, US, France, UN security council, OAS and European Union support.

Thus, for Dessalines' descendants, these zombie's mutterings are meaningless.

Ayi Kwei Armah further explains what's to be done with such predators and their blan-peyi Haitian lackeys, for they are dead: "Leave them in their graves. Whatever waking form they wear, the stench of death pours ceaseless from their mouths. From every opening of their possessed carcasses comes death's excremental pus. Their soul itself is dead and long since putrefied. Would you have your intercourse with these creatures from the graveyard? "

NO. Leave the dead in their graves, speak your righteous message not to these "long rotted ash..." but address your message, my people, to the living and look only to Dessaline's descendants worldwide. His legacy is liberty. Speak to liberty lovers. Empower the world's lovers of liberty.

On freedom day, raise up peaceful co-existence in the name of Dessalines, the father of Haitian independence, author of the concept that a "Haitian" is a "freedom lover,'" no matter his or her skin color or from which branch of that Black woman, mother of all the races – our ultimate root, he/she heralds from.

Remember that "Black" as redefined by Dessalines means a "lover of Liberty." Therefore any person, of whatever fabricated social "race," who loves freedom and liberty is Black, not white in the pejorative "tyrant" sense. For, to Haitians, any one who is a tyrant, no matter what his or her skin color, is deemed "white" , a blan, a stranger, not family.

Black is also, to Dessalines and his knowledgeable descendants, the color and texture of liberty.

It is because of this Dessalines' philosophy and psychology that Haitian
beliefs are marginalized and why Haitians are forever marked for destruction and annihilation. Our concepts, based on the observable facts of our history, experiences and existence, threatens white supremacy and today's world order, to its core. That is why most people in this world only know the lies told and retold about Haiti, about Haiti's culture, its psychology, philosophy.

I've written in the "Red, Black, Moonlight monologue series" that,
"Reaching for Black, keeps me from bursting into flames."

For, it is that "reaching" which defines and gives texture to our struggle.

Our independence and freedom is divine and "as black as primordial space; as black as the firmament from which creation sprung...the color of carbon, the key atom found in all living matter. All who are "Haitian" carry particles of a culture, where every vibratory energy comes out of the dark melanin seed, that Haiti and Africa owns, which captures light and reproduces itself and various hues and shades, full of multidimensional patterns, disparate energies, eternal seeds... "

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"Kanga Mundele", said the spirit of Ezili Dantò that mounted that great mambo Cecile Fatiman, on August 14, 1791 at Bwa Kayiman, the ceremony that begun the great Haitian Revolution.

Kanga Mundele means "kill the stranger" in Kikongo, "kill the stranger within", "amongst us." - and also meant long live freedom.

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On January 1, 2008, we remember and celebrate the road traveled. Humbled by the courage of the Haitians who left us a freedom legacy to live; a liberated psychology to help free Africa's children from all sorts of colonization, a philosophy to extend.

On Independence Day, January 1, 2008, we remember, respect and honor our deep roots even as we continue to face Officialdoms’ bitter lies, its white despotism and racists disdain. Its lies and half-truths, such as written above by the likes of "The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs", or, as being widely espoused by Canada’s counterparts in Washington, Paris and by their various corporate media chums, who continually call Haitians "fouled up", "failed," "gangsters" while in sum, calling their imposed UN protectorate "progress;" its bloody, pillaging reign "partnership" and its massive slaughtering, raping and incarceration of Haiti's peoples "improved security."

Said internationals are quick to find and pronounce, to all and sundry, that today’s occupied Haiti, (which is suffering more misery, more hunger, more kidnappings, more dependency, more indebtedness than it ever did under the duly elected rules of Haiti’s free governments from 1994 to 2004) is experiencing "progress... in terms of security and in the political arena."

In fact, Canada’s Foreign Minister further announces in the press release, that Haiti is today being “led by elected officials dedicated to rebuilding their country on the foundations of good governance and the rule of law.” Said Officialdom has no problem with such a hypocritical pronouncement when, the bare truth is that their created puppet Preval government is chock full of, at least ninety percent of the corrupt 2004 Boca Raton regime imposters and international Haitian sympathizers, Black overseers, who could never, EVER have been freely elected or appointed in Haiti, if not for the foreign-sponsored 2004 coup d’etat and the 9,000 UN troops holding the Haitian masses from expressing their wishes by the point of a UN gun.

Some of these international technocrats, like Raymond Joseph, the Haitian Ambassador in Washington and as practically the entire Haitian Foreign Ministry were imposed on Haiti in 2004 and still remain in the positions they took by force to this day. The others took their positions by-selection in the corrupt UN/US-run Haiti elections since 2004. Elections run by computerized digital machines in a country without electricity. Elections run by digital machines owned by the rich elites, with ballots printed by the coup d’etat Boulos family and counted by their own illegal electoral council.

Ours, has been a long struggle.

It started for us-Haitians in 1503 when the first kidnapped African captive set his enchained foot on what is now known as Haitian soil.

We continue to face the guns, greed and odious cruelties of the white man. But we also continue to celebrate our victories against him.

On January 1, 2008, Haitians shall come together to stand tall within ourselves against the Empire's lies and stigmas. We've survive. We know who we are, what we are and that we've got roots to keep us strong. Our history of survival is our greatest asset and rallying point. We exists still because we have ALWAYS defined ourselves, extended ourselves, given value to ourselves, our life, strengths, ancestors, history and heroes, when the world's greatest armies, medias and superpowers have not.

In fact, White Officialdom and its Haitian blan-peyi lackeys are united solely in their refusal to recognize Haiti's value, its sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Death, imprisonment, suffering and sacrifice may be our perennial plight, in this, Bartholomew De La Casas' "New World." Yet, try as the pathetic likes of these Foreign Ministers may, to tell Haitians what we are "worth'", how exclusionary elections are "our due", or, that Preval’s puppet government’s reign is "progress" and repression is liberty, he fools and shames only himself and his restavek Haitian lackeys.

As flesh and blood, endowed by our creator with the right to life, we claim the natural right to just retribution, to self-defense, to equal application of international laws governing human and civil rights.

For we are certain, if not in this lifetime, then in our children or great-grandchildren's time, the day will come when these fiendish Officialdoms of this world will answer for the Haitian lives they've helped to destroy down the centuries and generations. The day will come, as surely as the moonlight outside my window heralding that tomorrow is already here.

Every tomorrow will be our Independence Day. Every tomorrow we-Haitians shall extend our independence blocking Euro/US re-colonization, its modern day applications and their new rods of empire (i.e., endless foreign debt, massive privatization and elections-under-occupation). Every tomorrow, even if placed in jail like the men and women of Site Soley and labeled bandit “chimeres”, or in exile, or contained in poverty, we won't relent but shall recount our glorious history of struggle ad nauseum, until no doubt remains that we are indeed Dessalines' descendants.

On January 1, 2008 my people, leave the dead in their graves and look to Dessaline's descendants. Gather the living un-coopted Haitians, drink soup joumou, call on Marijan, Kapwa Lamò, Desalin and celebrate our living history. Keep making that history. Remember and celebrate the dignity of all those incarcerated right now in Haiti because they stood up against this occupation, remember the Ezili Danto goodness of Haiti's women warriors, remember our roots, our struggle - its vast glory.

Those roots are OUR living way, our legacy, our path to freedom and our light that's impossible to lose. It is that remembrance that calls us, animates us, keeps us moving through these unspeakable sufferings and griefs.

On our Independence Day, January 1, 2008, and on every tomorrow to come, we shall forget the dead living amongst us, sucking our blood like the vampires they are. These parasites have lost sight of Haiti's origins. Its sanctity, divinity and goodness. Its gift of liberty and fraternity when all around the Europeans settlers were bringing only depravity.

As Ayi Kwei Armah writes in his book, Two Thousand Seasons:

" A people losing sight of origins are dead. A people deaf to purposes are lost. Under fertile rain, in scorching sunshine there is no difference: their bodies are mere corpses, awaiting final burial."

Dessaline's descendants hold a sacred trust. Kanga Mundele!

Our mission is to live free not to live as dead zombies, corporate or UN sell-outs, servile to gluttonous and inhuman greed. Despite 505 years of grief, the African who became "Ayisyen" (Haitian) in the land of the Taino/Arawaks are still here – standing on truth, living without fear. Nou La! We don’t get much press. But we’re here! Nou la!

Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent, Esq.
Li led li la
Chair and Founder, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Netowrk (HLLN)
December 31, 2007


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Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent, Lawyer, Performance Poet, Founder and Chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (Photo Gallery/ Carnegie Hall)

 


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Standing on truth, living without fear – Supporting Barack Obama’s vision of what can be…

Ezili Danto's Note:

Haitians must believe they can overcome the odds to succeed. And, success, some say, is not determined by the cards you are dealt in life, but how you play them.

That is why, playing the cards dealt, HLLN wants to use this occasion to urge support for Barack Obama for President. We endorse Obama because he is the least vested in the Washington political ruling hierarchy. We endorse Obama because of his courage, empathy, ethics, charisma, remarkable personal journey and, most decidedly because of his stated stances on immigration, the war in Iraq, health care, education, worker’s rights, reforming the criminal justice system, repairing the environment and against corporate welfare and subsidies.

Why? Because we Haitians are in the furnace of that “hope, possibility and change” that didn't bring us any change, but have Haitians eating all manners of dirt to survive – suffering occupation, hunger, misery, rape, torture, indefinite detention and slaughter. For, President Rene Preval unfortunately has been nothing if not a tool of the status quo – of empire, endless debt, militarization, privatization and deep corporate greed - in Haiti. Yet, at the time he came along, there was no other viable choice for the people of Haiti. Same I think today with the US and the choice of Barack Obama. It may all turn out that Obama's offer of "hope, possibility and change" ends up looking like President Rene Preval's "HOPE" because the good old boy's network is too evil to be challenged by good people. It could well turn out that Barack Obama, like Rene Preval who first got permission to run for President not from the old civil rights guards but from the old US guards looking to stem the deadly damage and hatreds lifted up by Empire's shock and awe regime changes, will also become for the US, like Rene Preval in Haiti, the "best face" on US imperialism. Still, what choices do we have? Paralysis, cynicism and impasse are for neophytes. The NAFTA-Clintons are not a change from yesterday. Not for the poor and jobless in the U.S. Not for the “tan” women of Juarez, Mexico, nor the Black women of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, - all, tossed around by NAFTA employers like so much garbage.

No tenable choice exist with the remaining status quo candidates so vested in the Washington system that vies to exterminate equal division of resources, equal access, treatment, the poor’s rights and decent folks’ soul and humanity, globally. Barack Obama has no dynasty, no monarch, no oil interests to protect and extend. Not yet. He may do more for the abandoned poor in New Orleans and he seems to embrace, not what the United State is, but a vision of what the U.S. can be.

So, this may be the only time, before he's more vested in Washington’s system that with a massive people-push and his sheer vision, determination and clear, un-compromised conscience he could help catapult the strong but beaten down and nearly invisible collective U.S. wish to be what we say we are, and herald in an unexpected quantum leap for the US citizenry, and therefore the planet. A leap towards more decency and civility, away from profit-over- people values.

Either way, this is the moment for action. Not debate.

After Super Tuesday, it won't take much courage to support Barack Obama. So today, when silence could mean indecision, defeatism, fear, complicity or cynicism, we speak to formalize the grassroots work we've done outside the public eye, making public HLLN's support for Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States.

People know us at Ezili's HLLN for our regular collaboration with an international network of folks well educated in the pain, misery and suffering wrought on by constant U.S. government duplicity abroad and at home, and its grand tradition of promoting death and deceit under the guise of extending equity, democracy, generosity and humanitarian help. But today, at this historic moment, despite
knowing full well the shams involved in the US electoral process, we are standing on truth, living without fear to endorse the only people’s candidate remaining in this election. HLLN endorses Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to help lead the US towards a more civilized, peaceful tomorrow and authentic change that would bring prosperity and opportunities for all.

We thank HLLN members who’ve participated in our private forums debating this matter and acknowledge the large percentage of our folks who contend that Obama has done nothing good for Haiti so far and that, if elected, Barack Obama will just be the new black face of U.S. imperialism, terror, increased repression, and therefore will end up exacerbating and further retarding the struggle for grass-roots, bottoms-up, revolutionary change, worldwide.

But the HLLN consensus is to go with Barack Obama.

So, we respectfully ask all who are going to the polls this Tuesday, to join us. Listen, not to your fears, but to the silent screams of the disenfranchised women on this planet wishing an end to senseless wars, hunger, rape, death and misery. Vote for Barack Obama.

(The Obamas have no assassination fear -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqfRtcnpUMU ;
OBAMA - Yes, we can- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY; Sam Cooke - It's Been A Long Time Coming...But change gonna come).


Marguerite "Ezili Dantò" Laurent, Esq.
Founder and Chair, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (“HLLN”)
February 2, 2008

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What Haitian-Americans Ask the US Congress and of the New U.S. President

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I Don't Know this America...But I'm Most Happy to Meet It
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The Obama: Yes, we can (Adapted from a Senator Obama campaign speech and sung by Black Eyed Peas front man and songwriter will.i.am.; featuring celebrities including Scarlett Johanson, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh and Kareem Abdul Jabbar) http://www.dipdive.com/

YES WE CAN

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom. Yes we can.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores
and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.
Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots;
a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountain-top and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can...

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can. Si Se Puede
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can...)

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We want change!
We want change!
We want change!
We want change...

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant.

We've been asked to pause for a reality check.

We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

We want change!
We want change!
(I want change! We want change! I want change...)

The hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA;

we will remember that there is something happening in America;

that we are not as divided as our politics suggests;

that we are one people;

we are one nation;

and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America's story with three words that will ring from coast to coast;

from sea to shining sea - Yes. We. Can.
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can...)

See Video at: http://www.dipdive.com/

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Malcolm X at Oxford University Debate & Obama Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

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The country is going Obama. Obama-mania is unnerving
Ezili Danto's Note:


Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, Louisiana, Washington and Nebraska went to the polls and Senator Barack Obama received more than 50% of the votes in all three states, plus the Virgin Islands. He received 57% of the votes in Louisiana, 68% in both Washington and Nebraska, taking 92 delegates (3 from the Virgin Islands). According to one report, before the Maine victory, Senator Obama held 1,049 delegates (918 pledged and 131 super delegates). He needs a total of 2,025 to win the nomination. Today, he just won Maine by wide margins and more delegates. And, pundits are predicting he will sweep Tuesday's (Feb. 12, 2008) primaries in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, as well as next week in Wisconsin and his native Hawaii.

"Clinton is hoping to prevail on March 4 when Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont vote."

With our experience in Haiti and even looking at political and civil rights history in the U.S. since the 1960s social revolution and in this Hemisphere in general, this whole Obama-mania thing is unnerving. In Haiti, leaders like Daniel Fignole, for instance, help propel revolutions for the common man's rights/interests, and not for the rich who wouldn't deign to pay taxes, or be subject to the laws of the land. When such leaders speak, like Obama, for the people and by some miracle are elected, what we've seen - i.e. after Fignole, Aristide, et al - are years, decades, of reactionary politics as Empire and the super-rich strike back with a vengeance. That's why the most cautionary comment, I've read so far on the Obama-mania phenomenon, comes from a Latino activist, voting for Clinton, who wrote that "In Latin America... when people speak like Obama after many years of reactionary politics, a message of change to the Left means more turmoil and conflict, not stability."

A Black face to empire may only bring symbolic changes, but even this inroad, we fear, shall be too much for Officialdom. So, be prepared, if Obama actually wins the election, be prepared, my people, for their vengeance on those at the bottom rungs that will come. It will be ugly. Haitians, African-Americans, Latino Americans and Native Americans, et al, know this well. But, though it's scary as hell and, after two coup d'etats in Haiti (1991 and 2004), total immigration oppression/tyranny against Haitians since 1996, the Civil Rights reversals beginning since the Bakke case and Thurgood Marshall was replaced by Clarence Thomas, and the reactionary reigns of Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush, again, and war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Coup d'etat in the Ivory Coast, genocide in Rwanda (in the 1990s that everyone is saying was "the good old Clinton days in the U.S."), I can't imagine mustering up more fight. But, I suppose we must find the strength.

What we know cannot ever deter our struggle, from one generation to the next, towards economic democracy and a better and more just world for all.

“Barack is the right candidate for workers...This is about more than one election. It’s about building for the next generation of America," said SEIU President Andy Stern. “Barack Obama is creating the broadest and deepest coalition of voters we’ve ever seen.” (Press Release: SEIU MEMBERS ENDORSE SEN. BARACK OBAMAand Powerful 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Endorses Obama)

Marguerite "Ezili Dantò" Laurent, Esq.
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
Feb. 10, 2008
ezilidanto.com

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HLLN Recommended Links on "critical" support for Obama:

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I Don't Know this America...But I'm Most Happy to Meet It
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Wi Nou Kapab - Barak Obama Commercial to Haitian-Americans

Howard Zinn: Vote for Obama But Direct Action Needed, Oct. 22, 2008

Michelle Obama, the New First Lady: A Powerful Perspective

Ezili Danto's Note: The country is going Obama. Obama-mania is unnerving
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/Jan1_08.html#unnerving

Vote for Barack Obama - Ezili HLLN endorses Barack Obama
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/Jan1_08.html#obama

What Haitian-Americans Ask the US Congress and of the New U.S. President

Barack Obama Crosses the Great Divide: Both Ways at the Same Time


Barack Obama Acceptance Speech at Democratic National Convention in Denver


Obama Race Speech


And Now, Obama? A Bill Fletcher Political Critique


After Bobby Kennedy (Barack Obama) by John Pilger, May 29, 2008

Barack Obama and the African American Community: A Debate with Michael Eric Dyson and Glen Ford, Democracy Now!, Jan. 1, 2008

Observations from the front line
O-Bummer - “the man without a past for a country without a future
by William Bowles, February 12, 2008
http://williambowles.info/ini/2008/0208/ini_120208.html

The Haitian Blogger
http://www.thehaitianblogger.blogspot.com/

Press Release:SEIU MEMBERS ENDORSE SEN. BARACK OBAMA
http://www.seiu. org/media/ pressreleases. cfm?pr_id= 1596

Powerful 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Endorses Obama http://ap.google. com/article/ALeqM5jOHi_ 1Y0UVOBGmYRzQ151 Dn8z79AD8UQTKOG3

“Barack is the right candidate for workers...This is about more than one election. It’s about building for the next generation of America," said SEIU President Andy Stern. “Barack Obama is creating the broadest and deepest coalition of voters we’ve ever seen.”

See: Action Guide to help Barack OBAMA win the election

Malcolm X at Oxford University Debate & Obama Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

It's Been A Long Time Coming...But Change Gonna Come

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Video - The Obama Song (World of Friends): Bridges for Obama



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And Now, Obama? A Bill Fletcher Political Critique

Black Commentator, Feb. 14, 2008

The withdrawal of the candidacy of former Senator John Edwards, coupled with the outcome of the Super Tuesday primaries, established that within the Democratic Party, there is a two person race for the nomination. The Super Tuesday results, more than anything, demonstrated that Senator Obama was clearly competitive with Senator Clinton. While Senator Clinton won the states she was expected to win, Senator Obama captured thirteen states, including locations where one would never have expected a victory, e.g., North Dakota.

So, let’s look at the scorecard and see where we are. No, not the delegate count, but the political scorecard. On the major issues, there is no significant difference between Obama and Clinton. Yes, there is some nuance, and, yes, Obama opposed the Iraq war. But as readers of my commentaries know, I have not discovered particularly fundamental differences.

Despite this, there is a clear Obama-mania underway and there are two aspects to this that we must address head-on. On the one hand, Obama is inspiring millions with the notion of “change.” Now, the “change” that is mentioned in speech after speech is very vague. When Obama speaks in concretes, e.g., attacking Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan unilaterally, there is nothing new and different about that approach. Yet what seems to be happening is that the disgust with the Bush years, combined with a reassessment of the Clinton years, is leading many people to look for something very different. This is in part generational, but actually much deeper than that. I emphasize this point because it is easy to write off the excitement as being naiveté. There is an unfocused desire to break with what the USA has been experiencing, both domestically and internationally, and it has come to be personified in Senator Obama, almost despite himself.

The other aspect, however, is more complicated and a bit unsettling. There has been a tendency, including among some progressives, to attempt to fashion Senator Obama as something other than what he is. Over the months, I have heard progressive commentators describe Senator Obama as if he were the second coming of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his ’88 campaign. Surprisingly, Senator Obama is rarely challenged by credible progressives for the weakness of his platform and the lack of depth of his call for “change.” It’s as if we close our eyes, click our heels together, and repeat something to the effect of, the “change” will be progressive…the “change” will be progressive…

So, we are faced with this enigma. Some people, including some writers for The Black Commentator, are adamant that Senator Obama should not be supported and that he is a fraud. Others, including some writers for The Black Commentator, argue exactly the opposite. I am not going to argue the position of Solomon and suggest splitting the baby, but I will argue that critical support of the Obama campaign is an appropriate approach to take. Let me suggest why.


*First, and not in order of importance, the reality of the US electoral system and the state of progressive movements, is that we are a ways off from having a candidacy that is anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-empire - at least a candidacy who can win. Unfortunately, we are in a period where we are compelled to address the lesser of two evils. In that sense, while I do believe that we could have had a winning candidate who was better on the issues than is Senator Obama, no such candidate prevailed in the primaries.

Second, there is little question but that Senator Obama has helped to ignite excitement and an electoral upsurge, though I would not describe it as a movement, at least not at the moment. This becomes a space in which progressive-minded people can and should be pushing the content of progressive change, rather than relying on mere rhetoric.

Third, the color line. While I adamantly object to those who yell - in support of Senator Obama - that “race does not matter,” the reality is that a successful Black nominee, not to mention an elected Black president of the United States, lays the foundation for a different discussion on matters including, but not limited to, race. This does not mean that a Black person automatically makes the environment more progressive (does anyone remember the name Clarence Thomas?) but it does mean that an individual who is liberal-to-progressive can open a door for discussion. We should not expect that he will walk through that door, but others of us may very well be able to.

My conclusion, and I offer this with great caution, is that critical support for Obama is the correct approach to take. Yet this really does mean critical support. It means, among other things, that Senator Obama needs to be challenged on his views regarding the Middle East; he must be pushed beyond his relatively pale position on Cuba to denounce the blockade; he must be pushed to advance a genuinely progressive view on the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and the right of return for the Katrina evacuees; and he must be pushed to support single payer healthcare.

As I emphasized in an earlier commentary, it is up to the grassroots to keep the candidates honest. Silence, in the name of unity, is a recipe for betrayal. What we have to keep in mind is something very simple: the other side, i.e., the political Right, always keeps the pressure on. If we do not pressure, in fact, if we do not demand, the reality is that the Right will come out on top.

To do the right thing, we must assess and appreciate Senator Obama for who he is and what he is - politically - rather than engage in wishful thinking. To do anything else is to be disingenuous to our friends and our base. Senator Obama, if elected President, will be unlikely to reveal himself to have been a closeted progressive. Yet, with pressure from the base, he may be compelled to do some of what is needed, despite himself and despite pressures to the contrary.


Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Executive Editor of The Black Commentator. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.
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Action Guide to help Barack OBAMA win the election

Ways to Get Involved, right now for OBAMA and make a DIFFERENCE
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/actioncenter

Get involved in your community (i.e. - New York for Obama- http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/nyhome )

What Haitian-Americans Ask the US Congress and of the New U.S. President
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Barack Obama Crosses the Great Divide: Both Ways at the Same Time by Brad Parker, September 2, 2008, LA Progressives

Complex is the first word that came to mind while witnessing the Obama launch spectacle on Thursday night in D'Town. In a scene smack out of a Cecil B. DeMille epic movie, our hero extolled the virtues of the Republic while standing on a stage in a Coliseum.

In case you missed it, the backdrop was an ersatz Greco-Roman affair, pillars and all. It is true that if one were to attempt to salvage a Republic it would be in the midst of a nation bent on Empire. Then again, you would not parade around a bunch of military commanders if you were for peace not war, or would you. Barack Obama did just that on the last night of the Democratic Convention. Behind the public face of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama lays the conundrum of a leader who would be all things to all people.

America is a divided country. Recent presidential elections bear witness to that. Not so, said Barack Obama on Thursday night last. Mr. Obama proclaimed that there are no Democrats and Republicans; there are only Americans of differing circumstances. It was an echo of the red, white, and blue speech that catapulted him to the top of the political heap only four short years ago. Now that I have spent a week saturated in his vision, his organization, and his iconic promotion of both, I have slowly come to a better understanding of what he believes and what makes Obama run.

It has been said that Obama will be the first black president. He will be, sort of. He will also be the next white president, sort of. He will be the first president from the generation following the Baby Boomers, maybe. In fact, by most definitions he is a baby boomer - anyone born between 1946 and 1964. So he is of my generation and kind of not really part of us in his mind as you discover by perusing his marketing plan. What is the truth of Barack Obama then?

What should we make of all of this complexity? The answer is that within these contradictions lie the rub and the key to our man Obama.

Our motherly apparition of Monday night became poignantly real on Thursday. There she was, with that Mona Lisa smile. Together, all 84,000 0f us, we heard Barack's remembrance of his mother, S. Ann Dunham Soetro as pictures from the family album were presented on the jumbo screens above the stadium. It was warm, sad, touching and much more. Ann Dunham crossed the racial divide when she married Barack's father, who was a student from Kenya. Barack Sr. left them after two years and went back to Kenya. Subsequently, she married Lolo Soetoro and took Barack with her to Indonesia for five years where he attended both a Catholic and a Muslim school, thus crossing several more cultural divides.

Eventually Barack went to live in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents. Not growing up in a monochrome world, infused our man of the hour with a permanent need to reconcile all sides of every irreconcilable issue. It also left him with a lack of decisiveness at critical junctures in governance when you can't make everyone happy. His non-voting record on a myriad of tough decisions in Illinois and DC are proof of his calculating ways.

We have seen Obama's style of politics before. Bill Clinton was the master of getting ahead by attempting to have it both ways. He and his DLC crew presented themselves as "Third Way Progressives" - an oxymoron of particular peckishness. No third way exists in politics. That is exactly what "progressive" politics was designed to combat - standing for nothing and falling for everything. Progressive policy is "Left Turn Only". We will eventually discover if Obama is in fact a disciple of this DLC equivocating.

Standing in Invesco Field, immersed in flags waved in automaton unison, the fireworks evocation of bombs bursting in air, the Protestant remonstrations to secular professions, the chanting of pithy slogans, the generals on parade and the massive pent up desire for hope, change and something to believe in, we were awash in the heady bromide of American incurable romanticism.

Americans are especially romantic about the truth concerning themselves. In this obfuscating cloud of emotions, we can easily be manipulated by those who would make us believe we are going forward, only to pick our pockets while we go nowhere. It is the oldest story in America - the Great Huckster.

I am looking forward to believing in the hope for change. It would be good for all concerned if this is the change it advertises itself as. Realize though, that if we elect Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joe Biden, we will have to do our job. Our prodigious job, as citizens, is to be ever vigilant and demand better from our government.

If our government fails us, we must beat it like a rented mule, as they used to say in the Midwest. If it continues to fail to respond then we must replace it, as Jefferson exhorted us to do. As he attempts to cross the great divides among us, Mr. Obama will soon discover that you can't have it both ways at the same time. Leadership is the tough-mindedness to make enemies as well as friends, in the name of the common good, in favor of citizens rather than corporate Cronies.
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Here's hoping that Mr. Obama gives up the Cheshire cat act and delivers. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

by Brad Parker

Brad Parker is an award winning artist, songwriter, producer and musician. He has recorded, toured and produced hits in North America, Europe and Asia. Parker owns Indie label Riozen records and is a co-founder of "muzlink.com". Brad is a prolific political writer and speaker as well. Parker is very involved with Democratic political organizations including: President, Valley Democrats United, Vice President, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, Platform Committee of the California Democratic Party and Delegate, CDP Central Committee from the 42nd Assembly District.

*Bold emphasis by HLLN

Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!


"When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped...........If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want and all that is left is a compromise." Robert Fritz

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