>>>social change through economic empowerment

>i think it goes, economic empowerment
>through social change.
>changing the thinking/doing process of an
>individual comes first ALWAYS, economics
>is dependent on the social
>environment that exists. think about
>if everyone woke up tomorrow
>thinking like you, the impact
>would be immediate economic change.

If everyone woke up as flies, we'd be bloodthirsty.

I've stated this plenty of times on this board, economic empowerment is not simply about the access and collection of money and resources; it's about obtaining knowledge on how to use them to build your life from all parameters, not to simply say, "I'm rich, I have alotta cash".

>another example: civil rights era: blacks
>allowed to frequent white business(social
>change), impact: black businesses less
>frequented, dollars flow from our
>community to "other",and black businesses
>go out of business(economic change).

Actually, that was a POLITICAL change. Not social. There is a big difference between the two.

You see, when you have a political change, it's FORCING people to enact change. Usually when you enact political changes, the objectives you are trying to achieve backfire, unless it is a totalitarian atmosphere and you are willing to back up your demands with physical force and other methods of imtimidation. It makes people resentful, and look to try to find other ways to undermine the ones doing the enforcing. I would like to think politicians were not looking to undermine black businesses by forcing integration, but the problem was that they, like you, put external change in front of internal change.

>social change (mental readjustment) HAS to
>come first, otherwise, how will
>people even begin to WANT
>to work toward economic emopowerment?
>just like the argument towards "reparations".
>if given money/capital/resources (economical empowerment)
>right now, what would happen
>considering the mental state of
>african american negroes? the social
>change must be born first.

I agree with you on this part, but the thing is you fail to connect enlightenment with empowerment. Those things go hand in hand. What's the use of being enlightened if it doesn't empower you, and there is absolutely no empowerment without enlightenment.

New Quotes....

Fascist ethics begin ... with the acknowledgment that it is not the individual who confers a meaning upon society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual. According to Fascism, a true, a great spiritual life cannot take place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at once, and this need of rising the State to its rightful position. - Mario Palmieri, "The Philosophy of Fascism" 1936

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. - H.L. Mencken

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? - Henry David Thoreau

"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" - Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor.

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand

And always...my favorite....
Life is insensitive, and the truth can be highly offensive. To hide from either is to hide from the reality of life. Take comfort in the fact that I am an equal opportunity offender. You today. Someone else tomorrow. You have no Constitutional right not to be offended. - Neal Boortz