A book review

Just in time for Father’s Day is this interesting historical offering, Romulus and Uncle Remus, A True History of Rome, by author Dwight Anthony Williams Jr.

Recent decades have seen historical revisionists lay claim to indigenous Sub-Saharan Africa as the source of Egyptian civilization, Greek Civilization, the Jewish civilization, Christianity, and the various cultures of MesoAmerica! In fact, the only historical domain left to the Caucasian race was Rome – which, with it’s engineering feats, architectural wonders, and militaristic proclivities – was the paradigm for modern Western society . And this historical assumption — that Rome was the result of Caucasian influences — is a blotch on the historical record that author Dwight Williams seeks to erase.

The style of research and scholarship presented in Romulus and Uncle Remus will seem familiar to readers of the late Asa Hilliard, who almost single-handedly pioneered the black revisionist view of ancient history. And this is no accident; until his HOPE scholarship was revoked (still a matter of some contention with the author) Dwight Anthony Williams, Jr. attended Georgia State University, where Dr. Hilliard taught! (During his brief tenure at the university, Mr. Williams was a prodigious student activist who frequently came to grips with the administration over their refusal to paint the university’s hallways in a color scheme that reflected the Pan-African flag. This, not poor academic performance, he maintains, is the reason his scholarship was withdrawn.)

Not one to be constrained by the shackles of standard academic scholarship that the Eurocentric establishment has tried to impose upon the world, Mr. Williams feels his way through a panoply of historical data emotionally. And to surprising effect. Though Mr. Williams is admittedly self taught in the interpretation of paleologaphical data , and seems to have little regard for, or knowledge of, the standardized methods associated with historical research, he nonetheless presents a great volume of evidence for his theory by using what he calls the “blackness factor.” Euphonous Roman names loom large as evidence of African presence in Rome. Names like Tiberius and Claudius carry the flavor of Africa, a resonance that one can still hear on basketball courts or in the streets of Detroit or Atlanta..

Mr. Williams makes his most forceful case with Emperor Claudius Nero. Nero’s downfall, according to Mr. Williams exposition, was due to his “beefing” with the white power structure in Rome. “It’s easy to see the true meaning there,” Williams writes: “The name is actually Claudius Negro.” Eurocentric historians, he suggests, conveniently dropped the G from the name Negro in their never ending efforts to obscure African contributions to world history. Historians have always overlooked the germane point here. Claudius Negro, like President Obama, was an agent of change. Nero was a soulful musician who was framed, and then castigated, for burning the city down. “History ain’t changed much,” Williams says. “Always blame the black man. A black man better beware if he rises too high.” According to Williams, Nero, or Negro, because of his wrongful vilification, was the OJ of his day.

Williams takes great pains to point out the psychological and sociological affinities the Romans still have with Black America. As he surmised at a book publishing seminar in San Francisco earlier this year: “The Romans could fight! And every one of ‘em carried a knife. They didn’t like the skinheads of their day, the Germanic tribes, and took every chance they got to whip their tails. Who do that sound like?” (Passionate about his beliefs, as well as verbose on the subject, Mr. Williams offered to fight one book critic who dared to question his research methods.)

Though it does not rank with the works of Gibbon, or for that matter Hilliard, Romulus And Uncle Remus as a whole is meritorious, though the writing is a bit ponderous at times.  And Mr. Williams certaintly ventures on to shaky theoretical ground when he suggest that winged black Egyptians were the vehicles of cultural transference between Rome and Egypt, and that the wolf that suckled Romulus and Uncle Remus was actually a pit bull; nor is his quote by one early visitor to Rome that its inhabitants had dark hair and dark eyes, particularly persuasive evidence of an African population in ancient Rome; however, on the whole, the sum of his evidence is impressive and bears an impartial judgment by future historians.

Romulus And Uncle Remus, A True History of Rome

Dwight Anthony Williams, Jr.

Dark Horse Publications

$14.95

Available from Barnes & Nobles

and Amazon.com

While President Obama attends D-Day remembrances, his supporters here at home will be community organizing for “health care.” This from Mr. Obama’s website

After decades of false starts, the dream of quality, affordable health care for every American is finally within reach.

To succeed where others have failed, we must build a groundswell of support for real health care reform in every district and every state. And we have no time to lose.

On June 6th, thousands of people just like you are beginning to organize for health care reform by hosting or attending a Health Care Organizing Kickoff.

No experience is required to host or attend–we’ll give you everything you need to make it a success.

At these kickoffs

, you’ll watch a special message from the President, meet like-minded supporters in your neighborhood, make plans for reaching out in your community–and start to put those plans in action.

Together, we’ll win health care reform the same way we won the election: Building support one block, one neighbor, one conversation at a time. Please sign up today.

I haven’t seen or heard mention of this elsewhere.

In his speech about the GM bankruptcy yesterday, President Barack Obama (from the New York Times) said:

And that’s why I’m calling on Congress to pass fleet modernization legislation that can provide a credit to consumers who turn in old cars and purchase cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars. (emphasis added)

Turn in old cars.  It’s long been a talking point of liberals and environmentalists that cars older than a given age should be removed from the highways.  The usual mantra goes “The government should buy all cars older than X and pay the owner $750.  Then the owner could go out and buy a newer, cleaner, more efficient car.” The advocates for this position either fail or refuse to understand that the owners will not be able to find a car to buy with their $750.  Basic economics.

President Obama used the words “turn in” not “trade in.”  He will give folks a credit – I suppose that means an income tax credit – for doing this.  This sounds like the used cars will go to the government and be removed from the market.  No more used cars.  You either buy an expensive putt-putt new car , or you go without. It appears that he’s set out to destroy the used car market.

Update – Welcome Instapundit and Charming, Just Charming readers.   And a hat tip to Chicago Boyz for the link to a post showing the Brits have already adopted such a scheme.

We’ve written for years on the half-assed embargo of Cuba – some things embargoed, some not, states cowtowing to fidel for business, businesses organizing to ship even more to Cuba, and a push to eliminate the requirement at Cuba pay before the goods are shipped.

Now from Net For Cuba

What Cuba Embargo?

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday

, May 19, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Trade: Many Americans favor ending the trade embargo on Cuba, saying sanctions don’t work and Cubans’ lives will improve. But a recent AP report unwittingly proves that trade only props up the oppressive regime.

Some 34,000 American tourists sneak into Cuba illegally each year, determined to get an “authentic” Cuban experience on Varadero Beach or in old Havana.

In Cuba’s old hotels, they sip daiquiris, a pre-revolutionary Cuban cocktail, like Ernest Hemingway. These travelers kick in a share of the $1.2 billion tourist income to the Cuban economy.

The Associated Press found the experience they get is largely Made In America. The daiquiri mix used in Havana, for instance, is the same stuff you get in an Atlanta fern bar.

The AP also found the Communist Party’s propaganda “newspaper” in the tourist hotel is made from genuine Alabama wood pulp.

Meanwhile, the Cuban bureaucrats who deny that same Alabama newsprint to a free press go shopping in special stores for the party elite brimming with goods stocked from – you got it – Uncle Sam’s empire. Ordinary Cubans get nothing.

The whole tourist experience is bogus, with U.S. businesses telling AP that since Cubans are too poor – making $18 a month, on average – to buy their goods, they want more U.S. tourists to do so.

This shows that what passes for an embargo on Cuba really isn’t one. The U.S. sells $718 million in goods to Cuba through a 2000 legal loophole that permits the sale of food, medicine and lesser-known goods like chemicals, crude materials, machinery and transport equipment, according to the Census Bureau.

The goods do nothing for average Cubans. No, these goods merely prop up the Castro regime through the circular dynamic of tourists and goods. The daiquiris come from the U.S., the tourists follow to drink them, and Castro’s regime skims the profits.

No end to the embargo will stop that, because there is no consumer market for goods or services in Cuba; there’s only bureaucratic distribution. The one thing Cuba’s regime cannot create is a real economy that produces things of value, like tasty daiquiris.

For an authentic Cuban experience, tourists would need to “savor” rationing, shortages, long lines and bureaucratic indifference, because that’s the real product of Cuba’s regime.

The tourist illusion is pernicious, because for outsiders it creates a picture of a nation that only needs goods. The AP report shows that goods are plentiful – or potentially so.

The real problem is communism – not lack of trade. The only people the embargo’s end will help are the party’s oppressive elites.

Their first interest is in perpetrating their hold on power. If U.S. goods and tourists achieve that, then goods and tourists it will be.
* Collaboration: Anolan Ponce