What the heck! This month FORT BRAGG, one of the largest military base installations in the world, is changing it’s name. It is a big deal! The military has set aside millions of dollars to do the r naming.
The City of Fayetteville North Carolina, where the base is located, is spending millions of dollars to take the name off of properties it owns.
And the State of North Carolina has to modify the name on roads, land, bridges and structures.
What a hoot! Imagine how many painters this is going to take. An official ceremony to declare the name change recorded on the Public Record. Is being held by the military and important officials in two months,
You can follow the name changing event of one of the largest military installations in the world, at the official Black City of Fayetteville, North Carolina newspaper here.
Until Republican attacks on the loyalty of Lieutenant
Colonel Alexander Vindman, it was possible to make a cogent argument: President
Trump may not personify one’s idea of what a president of the United States
should be, but he is trying to move American policy from “A” to
“B”; and there has been too much focus on the pains of “A”
rather than the goals of “B”. It is an argument often made by Mr.
Trump’s own supporters.
No longer. Forty years ago, when he was three, Col. Vindman
and his family were part of the great Soviet Jewish emigration. In their case
it was from greater Odesa in southern Ukraine. His service to his adopted
country, the United States, has been heroic; no other word will do to describe
it. To falsely accuse him of divided loyalty only means that for Mr. Trump and
his flacks no lie is too low.
Colonel Vindman’s honor in Ukraine will be enhanced. But
Americans’ understanding of what is going on has been further muddied. Loose
talk by President Trump about “corruption” in Ukraine only misinforms
the uninformed. Whereas in Russia, enrichment of the corrupt has become a fine
art, Ukrainians have had enough. They look to the Czech Republic, Poland, the
European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. These
countries are the “B” they want to get to, and they are fully aware
of the pain to come in getting there.
Before Volydymyr Zelenskyy, independent Ukraine had five
presidents. Messrs. Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yushchenko and Petroshenko may have
believed they had no choice but to deal with oligarchs if they wanted to get
anything done. But each defended Ukrainian interests as best he could. Only one
— Viktor Yanukovych, along with his hireling, Paul Manafort — was the
boughten tool of the Russian government. That distinction is still lost on many
Americans.
One notes that as in no other country, late-night American
television entertainers such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmie Kimmel ridicule
President Trump unrelentingly. This is probably due to marketing — the networks
figure it is what twenty-somethings want. Hence the “news.” One
understands (at least I do) why Mr. Trump does not think he is being treated
fairly.
Until the lies about Colonel Lindeman and others
(Ambassador William Taylor, former negotiator Kurt Volker, etc.), the
fair-minded could agree with Senator Angus King of Maine. King, a political and
personal moderate, has argued that the 2020 election, not impeachment, is where
Mr. Trump’s stewardship should be judged.
By that thinking it is better to censure President Trump if
that’s what the evidence leads to. This would put Mr Trump’s supporters in a
bind and would obviate the contention that Democrats only want to overturn the
2016 election because they know they can’t win in 2020.
In Ukraine, President Zelenskyy’s popularity is down
slightly, but as president he is demonstrating some of the skills that got him
elected. He has the support of new, young members of the Rada
(parliament) elected on July 21. It is in the United States that we have the
difficult choice of how to deal with a president for whom no lie is too low.
David A. Mittell, Jr. is Boston-based political columnist. His e-mail is damittell@gmail.com.
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Ministers from the largest Black Boston churches were panelists tackling issues and problem-solving before an attentive audience. Beside them in the next conference room, a large audience buzzed with excitement for Business Pitch competitors vying for five-figure cash prizes to be awarded by experts in finance and community capacity building. University-style lectures, talks, and coaching sessions were ongoing all day long. The material was top notch!
People in their 20s to mid-40s dominated the crowd mix and freshmen interns were eagerly at work, representing products and brands and learning the ropes in the exhibition hall.
The exhibition hall was a good place to scout for services, products, and #buyblack. The line-up included black-owned firms in real estate, finance, information technology, virtual reality, website design, moving services, and AT&T mobile devices.
Senior procurement people and brand execs from the Mass Convention Center Authority, the SBA and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and other agencies like them had booths.
An after-party networker was held at the black-owned downtown restaurant the SAVVOY R & B lounge. Seaport venues often feel isolated from the hub of Black Boston. But not this time. #MassBlackExpo they took care of that by integrating the seaport to Black Boston. A shuttle bus ran from the expo to Dudley Square where CELEBRATE DUDLEY was in full swing with Roxbury Open Studios holding its annual tradition. And Mass Black Expo enabled you to travel between Dudley Square for free on the bus. Future conventions take note.
As I left the venue, I felt great about Mass Black Business Expo’s future prospects. It was a great success.
p.s. Read our story. Now in the Boston Public Library catalog, the book “BLACK SOFTWARE: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the Afronet and Black Lives Matter”Look Inside on Amazon
AboutBlackBostonOnline.com platforms Urban professional group lists, Big Black Boston events calendar, see who is hiring, free movie tickets, affordable rental housing leads, web site link outs, advertiser’s info for placement on Digital Black Boston sites.
BECMA – The Black Economic Council of Massachusetts
The BlackBoston.com City Content Directory with a tribute to the first documented Africans to live in Early Boston year 1638 and thousands of Black Business profiles, 150 articles and more.
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