Author: Rock Hackshaw

Back in the summer of 2003, freshman NYC council member James Davis was shot to death in the NYC council chambers at City Hall; mere moments before a stated meeting of the council was called to order.  The most poignant memory of that terrible event was probably that of a distraught Geoffrey Davis (James’s younger brother) continuously sobbing:”they assassinated my brother; they assassinated my brother”. Television-news coverage showed the palpable grief. The pain was real. James and his younger brother Geoffrey were real close. James was Geoffrey’s first hero.

As I said before: truth by its very nature is controversial. And since my first column with this title, I have had to defend a president of whom I have been critical at times; and with whom I disagree on quite a wide range of policy-approaches and position-takes in both foreign-policy and domestic spheres. Look; I am a man who loves to give Jack his jacket and Jim his gym shoes: thus I must give President Barack Obama his props (as they say in the hood).

After migrating to the USA, I found that one of the most frustrating aspects of being born on the island of Trinidad (the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago), was coming to terms with the reality that there is a misplaced arrogance afflicting  too many nationals and ex-patriots. Many people from Trinidad and Tobago (TNT) walk around with the foolish notion that they are oh so much smarter than the average person in the international arena. Fact is this: the reverse might be closer to the truth.

Relative to its impressive historical development, capitalism is presently in a crisis: no doubt. Truth be told, it has been in crisis for decades; but you wouldn’t know this if mainstream media has been your exclusive information-delivery system all this time.

Many people wonder why Republican legislators and Tea-Party members are so hard on President Obama.  Frederick Douglass may have given us the answer 128 years ago:

A few months ago I wrote a column imploring Anthony Wiener not to resign his office. Many short-sighted democrats took umbrage; some of these very Dems were vociferously defending Bill Clinton during “Monicagate” without seeing the contradiction now. Back then I was a lonely voice saying Clinton should step down from the presidency since it was the decent thing to do.

I always know when a column has touched some raw nerves: the phones start ringing almost as soon as the column is e-mailed; long before it even goes public/viral/lol.  And that’s when I usually have to defend my thesis or ”splain” myself like the deceased Lucille Ball. My last column- primarily about the potential Ed Towns v. Hakeem Jeffries congressional primary next year- brought some strange calls and e-mails. So let me expound on some of the things I wrote there and even throw in some other kibbles and bits.

Many people wonder why Republican legislators and Tea Party members are so hard on President Obama. Maybe Frederick Douglass gave us the answer 128 years ago.

Look; I know that an official statement hasn’t been released, so I expect the usual coy denials will be forthcoming when mainstream-media sources dig into this topic later this week.  I am going to put my credibility on the line here: Hakeem Jeffries has decided to challenge Ed Towns for the 10th congressional seat in next year’s primary.

So how do I know? Well……………….…………..ancient Chinese secret/lol.

For some time now, there has been an ongoing group-protest on Wall Street and New York’s financial district. The protesters are mainly young Caucasian brothers and sisters, who are totally fed up with where society, capitalism and democracy have been heading for too long now. It is no secret that significant numbers of enlightened folks nationwide are fed up with the many ways money corrupts the political system; and the many ways greed, connections, influence, self-over-indulgence, indiscretion, recklessness, power, unethical behavior and the like, corrupts the economic system.