The NeoLiberal

I was appalled last night as I waited in the Drive Thru at Checkers Restaurant located at Broad Street and Champlost Avenue in Philadelphia.  While waiting in the car for almost 20 minutes at the drive through window, I noticed through the glass window that a couple of boneless chicken wings had fallen on the floor. The male Checkers worker picked up the wings that had fallen on the ground and put them back in the fryer to serve me. I cancelled the order and left. Sometime ago I blogged that Tasties on 52nd and Market had a server using her barehands to prepare the platters while eating and moving between her phone without wearing a mask. Today it’s Checkers servers serving up food that fell on the ground. We must be vigilante about take out and any restaurants. I’m calling on the Food and Safety Inspectors to resume their work in ensuring that the foods we eat are prepared properly and served following health and safety guidelines. It is becoming chronic as I ride around the city ...

“Absentee Ballots” and or “Mail-in ballots” or “Drop-Boxes” create problems for democracy. That’s what the Supreme Court is grappling with today as  Republicans push massive voter suppression laws across the country, admitting that they can’t win without making it harder for Black and Brown Democrat leaning people to vote.  And guess what? They maybe Right! Let’s not pretend that  Mail-in  voting didn’t create a unique situation in especially Black households where Black-men and many young people do not vote. But they live in households that do. The  Mammas  organize and lead the family votes in the home. In 2016 Mrs. Hilary Clinton didn’t have the privilege of  Mail-in  ballots that would ensure that enough Black vote turned out on Election Day for her and the Democrats. That’s the problem; Black and Brown Democratic leaning people don’t usually get involved in the politics of voting. They are suspicious of political leaders and the system...

#Breaking: days before  the release of #Neoliberalism, Globalization, #IncomeInequality, #Poverty And #Resistance” is a Two Part #book: Part A takes an in-depth look at how or whether large-scale #Western #capitalist forces affect and, in general, harm smaller countries and their citizens, with a strong focus on the Global South—particularly #Jamaica—and its diaspora.  In part B we consider the response to the processes of #decolonization and globalization that have deepened the realities of the peoples of the #GlobalSouth and the peoples in the #diaspora. There have been hundreds of protests against the “#WashingtonConsensus” and their lackeys since 1976 by the #global justice movement and recently the #blacklivesmattermovement  in America. Street protests and some degree of #violence have been the main strategies of the group until recently. But are the resistance movements closer to achieving their aims? The effectiveness of the resistance will be determined by the ext...

#wednesday I’m delighted and humbled to announce that I have been admitted to the #Doctor of #LiberalStudies Georgetown University for the Fall 2021 class. This is the #first for my #family, as this means I’m the first to #graduate from an #ivyleague #college twice (University of Pennsylvania) and now the first to have the opportunity to read for my #Doctorate.  I hope that God’s favor will continue to be with me as I pursue this opportunity and that I use this chance to invest in others especially those who continue to endure discrimination and are disadvantaged. I hope I will re-invest in others what has been invested in me. I am so humbled and determined to succeed in order that God looks good and his people benefit from my work. 

PNC #Closing my #accounts @PNCBank. Joining a #creditunion today; they serve the #workingclass while #bigbanks wanna make money on the backs of the working while serving the #rich! What services you offer to black people? Don’t cherry pick my accounting and your services To all #Banks: Don’t charge a fee for service offered, then give back the fee and withdraw the service only to charge another fee for cancelling or withdrawing the offered service. This exacerbates the customers costs more as he or she now have to pay another fee to the other bank or merchant! Don’t give and take back! And what about equity. But the same policy that governs one customer governs another yet you claim #diversity. What about #distributionalequity in your banking and how you treat customers!

Someone asked: “Why do #Democrats hate #America? It’s the best #country in the world?” I responded: “America”, how do you define America that you could come to such a conclusion, given the context of #categories and #divisions we find ourselves. And if you’re an #honest #thinker, if you say Democrats hate America, why do you think so, why would Americans hate America? Another Someone responded: “I think because the #history of America has always been: “#workhard, be as successful as you desire”.  I replied: Is that so, the history of America has always been about hard work 😬. Or is it the history of the many or a few whose hard work have been #cheapened and #dumbed—down so that the #pay or #benefits of hard work aren’t realized by those who do the hard work Further, The #Weberian #Protestantethic of hard work and #saving which defined #capitalism is no longer a feature of American economic life. The Spirit and #Protestantism have been supplanted with nepotism and #connectionism, g...

#Tuesday: Former Prime Minister of Jamaica said in parliament once: “the #Law is not a #shackle!” and he’s right! There’s a difference between the #letter of a law and the #spirit of a law. Law exists to minimize, mitigate or avert certain conflicts and problems in the progress of society. The law prevents accidents but promotes progress & is reasonable. At times the law does not apply because situations in life does not necessitate the law or subscribing to a law. Example, why should you stop at a traffic Red—light at 2:30am early morning with no one around? The law here expects you to stop until it changes green so as to avert the possibility of an accident or conflict with another vehicle. But in a situation like this, one should not need to follow the letter of the law as the letter is only there to prevent and avert a conflict and if I were to proceed without waiting on a green light then I would realized the spirit of the law but not the letter. The law should not promote non...

#NewYorkers are moving out of #NewYork to other states like #Florida & cities like #Philadelphia because it’s cheaper to live in those places while still receiving #NY benefits. When the benefits dry up, and normalcy returns to society, they will move back because they prefer the NY Pay and NY life to these other places. The COVID pandemic has seen reduction in houses income and has largely increased activities at home so that life was lived at home. People left NY as the pandemic affected that city more than any other. Plus living in cheaper cities while still receiving benefits proved attractive as many wanted to save.  But as life returns and moves away from the home, and aid dries up, the earnings they are use to will drive them back to NY as they will find life in these new places less spectacular and pay as competitive. So that they will go back to NY. My former college mate responded to my post via #facebook asking: @AndrePLlewellyn: “Hmm....not sure about this. Is there...

As part of it’s monitoring, the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) and Jamaica performed an evaluation study in 2015 towards the end of a corruption reduction project to ascertain what components of the project was successful and what areas failed. It examined what worked and what didn’t. The USAID was under the impression (which forms the ideological basis of the study) that the extent to which the program puts corruption on the national agenda contributes to public perception and demand for change. It makes a scathing generalization and an assumption here. The USAID and the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) conducted a study which examined Jamaicas project over three years (2013-2015) to combat corruption by questioning 127 random individuals. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Combatting-Corruption-in-Jamaica-Final.pdf ).  As if that represents national perception and agenda when any agenda is limited by capabilities. The study did not explore infl...

Cuomo must step down on the whims of Allegations, yet to be proven, within a political context that is divided and is about scoring points.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign on Thursday, following a report of sixth a woman accusing him of sexual misconduct.   We want to penalize Cuomo, telling him to resign, without any verdict of guilt. He’s been found guilty by a divided political system that has perverted justice and human rights. Democrats are so hypersensitive about these issues which is created by the perception of  them trying to be consistent,  that they’ve lost sight of the process of justice and legality about allegations of abuse. In a haste to protect the victim and appear ethically consistent (as they had once called for Trump removal for the same or worse accusations) we corrupt justice, legality and human rights to fairness, we pervert the accused who is at first innocent before a verdict of guilt. Just b...

I’ d like to introduce a new Best Practice in Social Work to Jamaica. I’ve shared this idea with the Jamaica Theological Seminary where I teach as a visiting Lecturer. It is called Family Group Decision-Making (FGDM) and Youth Transitional Conferences (YTC). These programs are now the best practice methods of doing Social work and particularly Child Welfare. They focus on empowering the family and the individuals, so that social work is now about strengthening the family and individuals in crisis. This is done by bringing the “family” (any strong ties by blood or otherwise) together, identifying the concerned individuals connections and the strengths and resources already in the family and community and build on them. This helps the family to heal by giving them the tools and resources and provide the services that connects them to these resources to realize their plan. That’s a mouthful right there. But what am I proposing here?  I had the privilege of working with the Pennsylvani...

Excert from the upcoming Book: “Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty And Resistance”.  Today Jamaica is still unable to provide any help in the fight against the COVID Pandemic. They have not produced or contributed to the production of any vaccine and their citizens are now feeling the brunt of the pandemic with rising numbers and deaths over the last month.  Jamaica’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been reactive and unscientific without much meaningful evidence based research and technology from within to tackle the virus. They have relied heavily from partners without much success as their partners have become insular trying to meet their own national needs. Indeed in Jamaica, Science and Technology are talked about everywhere always but there is very little concrete discoveries or invention that can lead to development. The University of Technology and a ministry or institution that focuses on developing Science and Technology in Jamaica, and the...

#Friday The twenty-first century has moved on from traditional publishers gatekeeping publication. The dinosaur years are over. Traditional #publishers aren’t even making much money these days; its soft platforms that provide the marketing solution to #writing in the twenty-first century. With the rise of #socialMediaPlatforms, #Amazon, #Google books and the tectonic changes, the way we think about publication or publishing has changed, so that no few publishers control the market and you can self publish. You can now create your own market and profit. That is the way of the future. That’s the new world. Social media has opened up access to information and to markets so that anyone can encroach. Did you see what happened recently with Wall Street and the group of (outsiders) nerds who outsmarted Wall Street and made millions off #gamestopstock through #Reddit. However personal connections and understanding “how to break into #product marketing by #AmazonProductLead are important in the...