Here we go again. Violence and more violence against African Americans. About 400 ± years ago, European Americans had two very distinct paths from which to choose: moral goodness for inclusive publ...

Despite the COVID pandemic, worsening global conditions, and populations surviving with less than a dollar a day or a couple of days due to deliberately constructed dispossessions and disadvantages...

Introduction This article discusses the implication of political flip-flopping which directly diminishes political responsibility. Political flip-flopping requires the incorporation of amnesia (deliberate forgetting) to simultaneously sustain dominance, privilege, and advantages on the one hand, while apportioning violence and disadvantages to already vulnerable citizens on the other. There is clearly an agitation around the U.S. regarding where almost everything stands. Positive precedence regarding rights, justice, and fairness appears to have little or no effect on current practices of political governance. Whereas election promises in 2016 spoke of re-enlivening specific versions of the American experience, the actual current governance posture in the U.S. appears to dismantle reasonable programs that were to guarantee rights, health, environmental protection, and other safeties. The 2016 elections redivided the nation along bitter racial, economic, political, and religious lines. While vulnerable and disadvantaged populations received open threats and negation, the promises made to poor Whites, who for years believed they are not poor, vulnerable, or comparable to traditionally poor groups (Native and African Americans, and Latinos and Asians), were instantly reneged as the current administration assumed office. The administration flipped from promises to instantly empower billionaires and powerful corporate groups in its attempt to consolidate absolute control of economic and political advantages. In the tradition of neoliberal capitalism, the empowered billionaire class, now fully in control in Washington, DC, makes it possible for powerful corporate groups to demand control by way of privatizing everything, even including the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) Air Traffic Control (ATC).

Presidential Conflict in Côte d’Ivoire: Governance, Political Power, and Social Justice explores the 2011–2012 presidential conflict in Cȏte d’Ivoire, focusing on the conflict’s impact on governance, political power, civil society, security, and social justice. The book examines the ways in which dictatorial governance detracts from democratic and civil society aspiration, the intersection of power based conflict and its impact on citizens and their security, and the role ethnic sentiments and negation play in de-emphasizing the humanity of non-favored groups. Moreover, the presidents’ conflicting perspectives on the nature of governance and political power marginalized concerns specifically regarding the significance of democracy, civil society, and social justice. Despite President Laurent Gbagbo’s challenge and demand for democracy, his presidency was unable to avoid morphing into dictatorial and autocratic governance. Autocracy and dictatorship had already inseminated Cȏte d’Ivoire during the thirty years of President Felix Houphouët-Boigny’s benign dictatorship. It is within this rigidity that Gbagbo, a product of Ivoirian socio-political history, socialized in dictatorial, ethnic, and elite sentiments, constructed his version of autocracy and dictatorship, and refused to yield power to a new president elect, Alassane Ouattara, triggering a national presidential conflict. This analysis of the presidential conflict is an effort to forestall future similar issues around the globe, but specifically in poor and developing nations, from destabilization and violence. The book concludes with an African Conflict Transformation model constructed as a consultative option for political conflict mitigation purposes.

The massacres that took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1996 and 2003 have posed an interesting challenge to the global community, specifically to its more powerful members. Ironically, the Tutsi-dominated government of Rwanda enjoys international recognition and benefits based on the genocide, Rwanda suffered in 1994, but continues to deny the same benefit to Hutus as they were accused of leading a counter-genocide campaign then in the DRC. While the people of the DRC, as well as human rights activists, call for justice for all who were affected, the government of Rwanda, strongly backed by a number of powerful international powers, opposed attempts by the international community to pin charges of genocide perpetrated by its army in the DRC on it. Because of the clear negation of the genocide report by the Rwandan government, the nature of human rights, human rights violations, and genocide criteria proposed and defended by key members of the international community in relation to the mass killings in the DRC are examined.

Critical natural or human-made disasters have increased over the years, but their impact is most felt in poorer regions of the world. In the beginning of the 21st Century, there is increased urgency to find efficient and sustainable solutions to these disasters. However, the customary response to critical crises continues to be unidirectional. When critical disasters strike, poor nations rely on advanced nations for solutions. This formula though useful in the short term has had devastating consequences. This article focuses on why this approach must change in order for poor nations to become self-sustaining and self-supporting before, during, and after a critical disaster occurs. The attempt here is to develop a strategy whereby poor and advanced nations enter into hyper transformative negotiations focused on holistic considerations. These considerations include economic, social, political, and other crucial elements which are the foundations for securing well being and selfsufficiency, the indispensable prerequisite for critical crises preparation.

This paper has five elements. The first is a brief overview of the wars in Africa. The second connects Africa and its wars to social injustices which were historically constructed and fostered by exploitative external and internal factors. The third examines the implication of increasing injustices in Africa (intensified by wars and civil conflicts) and connects colonialism, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, or eternal colonialism to internal/external political and economic manipulation, poverty, degenerating social conditions, and conflicts that result in wars. The fourth deals with the specific standard that has become the modus operandi favored by the West and other parts of the world who behave like the West when dealing with Africa; and the fifth attempts a number of suggestions useful in approaching the possibility of a transformative response toward constructing justice and peace in that continent.