สำเนาบทสนทนา 🔗
00:00:11
Speaker 1: Rising Family, and thanks for starting your week with us again. Later, former FBI agent Dr. Tyrone Powers returns to our classroom.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Now, Dr.
00:00:20
Speaker 1: Powers will tackle many different international and national issues, including the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York City, where several heads of state are also scheduled to meet with Donald Trump.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Dr.
00:00:31
Speaker 1: Powers will also discuss why some members of Congress are upset with Secretary of War Pete Hegstead. But before we hear from Dr. Powers, world traveler and entrepreneur. Sinclair Skinner is here. Before we do all of that, family, let's go to the classroom door. Let's get Kevin to do that chore for us this Monday morning. Grand Rising, Kevin.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: Hey, Grand Rising indeed, Carl Nelson. How are you feeling this morning?
00:00:55
Speaker 1: I'm still learning, Kevin. I'm in that mood.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: And it's like autumno, right? Getting ready to learn more about the weather, aren't we?
00:01:08
Speaker 1: Yes, we are. The weather's changing. That's interesting, though. I think we'll let Dr. B talk about that, too, when he joins us later this week.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: Okay, great, man, because it just seems like summer was short, man. It just seems like it was only yesterday that it was summer.
00:01:29
Speaker 1: In a few days, you really start feeling like fall. But, yeah, it's a good feeling, fall and spring. I think the fall and the spring are the best.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah? What do you mean? That's your favorite weather?
00:01:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, favorite time. Not too hot, not too cold.
00:01:44
Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
00:01:45
Speaker 4: No, no.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: I love the summer. I do. I probably just need to take off to enjoy it when it comes because it takes, what, it lasts, what, about 90 minutes, I think? You know. But there's always the Indian summer. Sometimes some of us rely on that weather, but right now the weather says It's going to be like a lot of rain and a lot of the cooler temperatures and recurring rain showers. And that's the way the fall is going to come in. So get ready, get set, get your umbrellas and your rain gear. What about that? Do you have different kinds of rain gear, Carl?
00:02:31
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I just love the rain. Man, living in L.A. for so long, I just love the rain. It just never rained until now. This is the weather modification, whatever they want to call it now. They're getting a lot of rain out there.
00:02:42
Speaker 3: Oh, I see. So you got an affection for the rain. Were you growing a garden or something? I was just saying, man.
00:02:55
Speaker 1: No, no, just like the rain, man.
00:02:58
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Well, on a serious note, you're talking about digging for facts, both sides rested their case Friday after just four days of testimony in the federal bribery trial of Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember Treon White. The judge is hearing arguments today on a defense motion to completely dismiss the case, and White faces up to 15 years in prison on a single charge of federal bribery if convicted. The government's case is that the prosecution rested their case after calling seven witnesses over four days. Key components of their argument included the informant and the secret recordings. The government's star witness, businessman turned FBI informant Alou Kamara, testified about setting up a bribery contract that could have netted White up to $ 156, 000 in kickbacks, and jurors were shown secretly recorded FBI videos of White accepting envelopes of cash from Kamara, including one instance where he slipped a $ 15, 000 cash envelope into his suit jacket pocket. So before we go on, did you want to add something to this?
00:04:13
Speaker 1: No, I'm just going to say the judge is going to rule today because– Trayon's attorneys say they didn't prove their case. You got to prove your case beyond a shadow of a doubt. And for Trayon's lawyers, they said they didn't reach that bar yet. So they want the entire case tossed or at least portions of it tossed. That's what they're asking for. Judge is going to make his ruling today. If the judge declines all or part of that request, then it goes to the jury tomorrow and they start deliberations. So that's where we are. Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker 3: And a lot of this is about the optics, um, He handed him an envelope. He put the envelope in his pocket. They say he put the envelope in his pocket all, I guess, I'm going to say willy-nilly. I'm going to say that. He put it, you know, like he was supposed to, I don't know, hold it up.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, but, you know, they're not denying that. They're not denying that he took the money. They're denying it wasn't a bribe. That's what they're denying.
00:05:08
Speaker 5: Oh, okay.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: And all they have to do, Kevin, remember this now, all they have to do is convince at least one member of that panel to think like them.
00:05:15
Speaker 3: Right, exactly, and then it nullifies the jury.
00:05:19
Speaker 1: That's why they called it jury nullification. That's why they called it in the OJ case.
00:05:24
Speaker 3: Well, to bolster the judge's decision, the defense called three character witnesses and then rested after two hours or so. Treon White himself chose not to take the stand in his own defense, but the character witnesses were former D.C. Attorney General Carl Racine and he testified to his longstanding professional relationship with Treon White, stating that White had never attempted to steer contracts to Kamara in the past. Other witnesses testified to how honest White is. The motion to dismiss was the prosecutors failed to prove that White actually carried out an official action, like you said. And so if U.S. District Judge Colleen Collar-Cotelli denies the defense's bid to throw out the case. Like I said, the jury begins tomorrow, and it'll be all over everywhere. And
Load full transcript
so we're going to keep our eye on that. And other things to keep your eye on is the triumphal arch that President Trump announced, and he's going to propose a 250-foot triumphal arch. stating that the monument will now double as a top-grade military complex equipped to store and deploy drones, ammunition, and snipers. What is that about, man?
00:06:49
Speaker 1: That's interesting that he changed his mind, you know. He's supposed to get, you know, Congress. He's supposed to send all the plans of what he wants to do and get congressional approval. But as you know, like he did with the White House, he just went ahead and did it and started doing it and then, you know, It's like, do it, and then if they complain, then let's go to court, and the Supreme Court rules in his favor. That's what he's doing, again, with this particular move. So he's trying to make it easier to get it passed because straight up it looked like a vanity project. Who wants an arch except Donald Trump in Washington, D.C.? So now it's going to be used for other stuff than just a fad or a facade, if you will, another building or construction in the city. It's something useful, so that's why he added those things to it.
00:07:35
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and he's trying to justify this arch now. He said it was a strong request of the United States military for national security purposes. He's kind of like putting it on those guys, right?
00:07:52
Speaker 1: And McConnell says, well, can we see the request? Who requested it? And what is a strong request? There's some guy mentioned, one person you convinced mentioned it. I mean, it could go real deep, you know what I'm saying?
00:08:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, he claims it can house, store, and rapidly deploy large numbers of military drones, station snipers on both the roof and the surrounding plaza area. But the biggest problem is that eternal flame that he wants to put on top of it. there's already supposedly a figure that will be standing there, and then that figure is holding a flame, sort of like the Statue of Liberty. And they're saying that that could, the FAA is saying that it could, it will, oh, they say it will not pose an aviation hazard only if it is topped with a non-standard eternal flame, whatever that is.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's in the flight path of the airport. So that's a problem. So, you know.
00:08:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: At a certain height, you have to have a signal or a light so the pilots, when they go on the land, they'll see. And that's another issue. That's what he wants to overcome. But again, on the surface, it seems like a vanity project for him, what he wants to do. So, you know, we'll see what happens.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: Right, right.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: And there's supposed to be lights pointing at it so you can see it at night. And that's the other problem. There's the flame and then those lights that are pointing upwards. and there's a complaint that it also affects the graveyard over there, too, you know.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, because by the cemetery, Arlington Cemetery, and close by Arlington. But you know what? And also, it's supposed to get permission from the D.C. commission. There's a commission in the city council that has to sign off on that, and they just ignore those guys, you know.
00:09:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. So moving right along, and, you know, speaking of... Sad news, the Washington Commanders suffered a brutal 37-20 loss to the Dallas Cowboys yesterday. And, you know, that's how football is, any given Sunday. However, franchise quarterback Jaden Daniels dislocated his left elbow, and that injury occurred on the final play of the first half with just three seconds remaining while attempting a third and goal play from the one-yard line. It looked like he was going to do it, but a lineman stepped on Daniels' foot causing him to stumble, and as he threw an incomplete pass and fell, he landed awkwardly and braced himself with his left arm, and you could see his elbow just come out, man. He was carted off the field in visible pain with his arm in an air cast. He covered his head with a towel because he must have been crying a river right there, and he was quickly ruled out for the remainder of the game. Now, the head coach, Dan Quinn, confirmed that the initial stadium x-rays came back negative for fractures. So further testing is scheduled to happen today to check for ligament damage. And this is a re-aggravation of the exact same injury that derailed him last year in a dislocated left elbow that he acquired around Thanksgiving of last year. So any thoughts?
00:11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. You know, he's appearing to be injury prone. I know the football fans for the Commandos don't want to hear that, but, you know, this has happened more than once. What do you mean by injury prone, though? Because it's injury. He gets injured all the time. You know, one of the things in sports, you like to be able to, especially when you have a talented athlete, you like to be able to perform. If you can't perform and you're injured all the time, it's a problem. So that's the problem right there. And what the commanders have to figure out today or tomorrow, whether or not he has surgery, if it's tendons or ligaments, the problem is, or is it season ending? Or is he going to be out for some time? But is it time to sit him down and have the surgery, if it needs, if it requires, or recommend that he have surgery, have surgery and just ride him off for the rest of the season? You know, some big choices have to be made this week.
00:12:08
Speaker 3: Well, the loss drops the commanders to a frustrating 0-2 start to the season, and The defense struggled to contain Dak Prescott and C.D.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: Lamb.
00:12:19
Speaker 3: Those guys were firing on all cylinders yesterday.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: I said they were on fire.
00:12:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, man. Dak Prescott broke some sort of record, you know, for having
thrown the most complete passes in Cowboy history. And meanwhile, Marcus Mariano will take over as a starter under the center. And last year he He played eight games, won two out of the eight. And so his fantasy football value is going to go up, I guess, according to this article. So I'm going to leave it at that, Carl, man.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, because next week they get the Seahawks and the Cowboys.
00:13:01
Speaker 3: Here in D.C., yeah.
00:13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Cowboys who beat them up, they play the Ravens. And the Ravens lost. They come from behind losses. They lost to the Saints 24-17, so a tough loss for the Ravens. But the Ravens get the Cowboys next week, so that's going to be a good game, too. Two good quarterbacks going.
00:13:18
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker 3: Okay. I'll cheer for the Ravens then. Hey, look, that's the way it is on the 21st. What's up, Jim Bregard? Thanks for your time. Your guest is standing by. All right.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: And our guest happens to be Brother Sinclair Skinner. Grand Rising, Sinclair. Welcome back to the program.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Oh, well, Grand Rising, Big Brother Carl.
00:13:39
Speaker 1: So have you been traveling recently? You always get an update. We travel you vicariously when you travel. So we always want to find out where you've been since we last spoke.
00:13:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the only I went to Hong Kong briefly at the end of August. Well, I guess it's about two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago for a Bitcoin conference. in Hong Kong. So, as you know, I'm into the tech part. It's not limited to the United States. It's global. So that was really helpful just to see what other folks were doing in other parts of the world. And it's always good when I go to these tech conferences, meeting brothers and sisters from the continent and from the diaspora and connecting. So exchanging notes and things of that nature. So I definitely always seek out people in these spaces. And I think, yeah, Hong Kong. But I'm definitely going to be here in the States until the end of the month. We've got a big black blockchain summit. And then October to– November, you know, all the HBCU homecomings, Howard and Tuskegee. I just bought another house in Tuskegee. So we're probably going to do a big housewarming and invite Mayor Ford. Actually, I was at the CBC. We had a booth there for I Love Black People. And I got a chance to see Mayor Johnny Ford from Tuskegee, my first political mentor there. And I was able to give him a ride to the airport. It's those little things that you just like, really, the ride to the airport can be so enlightening.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: Those personal conversations, right?
00:15:26
Speaker 7: Right, right.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Like, you know, those conferences and the conventions, all the hustle bustle. But when you get one-on-one in the car to the airport, we had plenty of time and we had to top down. The weather was great. I mean, it was, yeah, I love Johnny Ford.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: Well, check it out. He's going to be here this week, if you know. Oh, I didn't know.
00:15:48
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:15:48
Speaker 1: No, I forgot to tell you. Yeah, Mayor Ford is going to be with us later this week. So, you know, make sure you listen or call in if you have a chance.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Right on.
00:15:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: So he's, I mean, the stuff that we're doing in Tuskegee, and this is my third, you know, this thing called Buy Back Bib Street with some former students and we're just trying to support them. And the current mayor went to Hampton. And so, I mean, definitely, we'd love to make Tuskegee a destination. You know, people go to Martha's Vineyard in the summer. They need to come to Macon County, Alabama. We've got a beautiful lake there. And yeah, Again, you know, being a Pan-African, as we can go from the rural to the city, global, local, yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: Well, hold that thought right there. We've got to take our first break. When we come back, let's get into it. Family with, I guess, the brother Sinclair Skinner. You want to talk about travel. You want to talk about his I Love Black People project. Or you want to talk about the Black Blockchain Summit that's coming up at Howard University towards the end of the week. You know how to reach us, 800-450-7876. And we'll take your phone calls next. Thanks for starting your week with us. Our guest is Sinclair Skinner. He's a world traveler, a humanitarian. He's also into tech. As you mentioned, he just got back from Hong Kong and there for a conference about blockchain. We're going to talk about that as well. But one of the projects that I like that you're doing, Brother Sinclair, and I guess everything emanates from this I Love Black People project. Can you tell us how, you know, for some of us, we always have some new listeners hearing you for the first time. How did you conceive that idea, I Love Black People?
00:17:26
Speaker 2: You know, I think you probably have a better perspective. As I get older, when people ask me, where did something come from? I get more like, I don't say platitudes, but more general with my answer. You know, something happened on a specific day.
00:17:44
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:17:46
Speaker 2: But now when I'm starting to look more retrospectively at these bodies of work, and I realize that this actually was influenced also by these other things, but just so I don't turn this into a long answer, it really came from the fact that we were really trying to solve a problem using technology in Africa as well as in the States. We started off literally as a tech startup that used Bitcoin to help send people money. And what we saw was one of the racist areas was the financial infrastructure where it actually penalized disproportionately brothers and sisters in places where black people live, African people live, and in places where other people live, the cost of moving money was much cheaper. You
know, just as bad as it would be looking at an ATM in the black community having higher fees. Remittances was very high. So we really started off, my co-founders from Zimbabwe, we really started off looking at a way to use technology to help be able to send money without a tax, a racist tax on our blackness. And then as we started developing that, we realized that it wasn't just in transactions that we saw that technology could be used. We really saw the original green book. the concept that Victor Green came up with, where he literally devised a way to get information, we call it crowdsourcing now, that information from brothers and sisters in three areas of places to eat, places to sleep, as well as transportation, to help make sure that we can navigate races, you know, segregation, Jim Crow, apartheid America, where it was legal to be racist and harm our people. So that concept and our work that we had already started with technology with the blockchain space morphed into how can we use more technologies to actually solve problems in our communities instead of just looking at the traditional ways. So the Green Book was innovative in the 1930s, but using a book and is not enough today we're now able to do what victor green did every year to to update we can update instantaneously we literally add recommendations every day and so and we went beyond the three uh areas that they started with places to eat places to sleep and transportation we expanded it uh especially uh learning what we were learning especially with covet that Travel is just one vulnerability. You know, I'm talking about my travel. When you're traveling in new places, you don't know anyone. So that makes you more vulnerable. But the truth is we need protection, not just when we're traveling, but with all the vulnerabilities people find themselves in, such as being sick. Like we saw during COVID, people not properly addressing our issues. So when you're sick, you're vulnerable. You need to make sure that the people who are not helping you are saying they're helping you are racist. So we make sure we use eight categories, places to eat, places to sleep, transportation, like the original Green Book, but health care. That's key. There's literally, you know, we talk about, I remember Serena Williams was almost killed by her doctors when she was given birth, which is, again, these are things that are happening to our people that we need to do, you know, intentional things to stop. Also illegal. You know, we talk about, you know, what's going on in Mississippi with Brother Malik Jules Sabah and the work that other folks are doing to make sure our people are protected from false imprisonment and being harmed and humiliated. Well, we need to make sure we identify Black-friendly lawyers. So that's one of the key components. Also, we have finance. Right now, we're dealing with issues in South Africa where Black people are being attacked by other Black people. and being called foreigners. And oftentimes when sisters and brothers are going to send money home, they go to a financial location and people are accusing them of not having proper ID and they get harassed. So we need to make sure that no matter where our people are going, that they can be treated with dignity and respect. And the concept of this is really how do we take technologies and actually solve problems in our community? People talk about AI, these data centers. The question is not if we're going to have technology. I mean, we're literally right now using podcasts. We're using voice over IP. There's a lot of technology. which is not inherently good or not inherently bad. The question is, what are we going to do with it? How do we use it? So I Love Black People is a manifestation of us taking the technology. My background is engineering. My co-founder is engineering. How do we take our backgrounds and our talents that God has given us and apply it to the most serious problems facing our people. And we've been facing this racism and Afrophobia for over 500 years. So it's about time that we take our brains and use that. And even with the Black Blockchain Summit, we have a pitch competition where we ask students to use technology, not just blockchain, to solve current problems that are facing our community. If we're using all this technology to help make the same people who've been oppressing us make it easier for them to oppress us, then we're part of the problem. So we don't have to do that. We can actually use the technologies that we see and actually create a better world with those things. So I love Black People's Day, blockchain, anything we touch, we try to make it relevant to our community and make it something that can help eliminate. They talk about, is AI going to take jobs? We're going to try to use all these technologies to take white supremacist ideology away. That's the way we look at and approach things. How do we leverage these things to address these systemic issues that we continue to face?
00:23:43
Speaker 1: 30 minutes at the top. I found just waking up, that's Brother Sinclair Skinner explaining to us how we started I Love Black People program. You know, first, let me just applaud you for what you're doing, because you thought about us using the God given talents that you have instead of helping the other folks to keep us down. You try to help to build us up. I just wish everybody who has given this particular talent from the creator would do that. If we could do that, if we could change that mindset. we could lift our people up equally or beyond what we're doing right now. So I just want to thank you for doing that and hammer the forethought because most people, they go to college and think about, go to college and get a job. I know that's what I thought. That's what I was taught when I was going to college. First thing you do is go find a job instead of creating something for ourselves and creating for our people. That's what you did with the I
Love Black People project. But again, and you also mentioned the Black Blockchain Summit that's coming up at Howard University. at the end of this week. How did that come about?
00:24:45
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things, again, when we started, I said that we were looking at solving a problem with spending money and how racist that system was with MoneyGram and Western Union having duopolies where they could charge outrageous fees. That was baked in their business model. They could actually charge less fees to move money throughout Europe and then charge a premium in Africa. which really subsidized what they were doing in other parts of the world by exploiting us. These are just built in. This is not even technology. This is a business model based on a racist theme. I think we need to better understand that. I think the things that we saw were important and why we need to use technology to undo some of these things. Because the banking system had been around and established for so long, a lot of times people said there's nothing we can do. But when technologies came out like blockchain, where you now don't need a bank to move money around, it said, look, now we got the ability to do the things that these big old companies were doing, and we could do it faster and better. Now, what's happened with that, unfortunately, those bigger, slow, old infrastructure racist companies like these banks They've now figured out ways to manipulate politicians and the policies to undermine much of this innovation. And so much that you see now, unfortunately, is how industries can be co-opted by companies. by the legacy industries like the banking industry. So you have now people trying to make programmable money that's controlled by a centralized bank, which is probably not more freedom, it's probably less freedom. And we see the same things with artificial intelligence. I mean, They now are saying, oh, now they're concerned about artificial intelligence. But what happens is the models that they're using in the United States are closed models. You don't even know how their algorithms or what they're doing work. But if you look at some of the Chinese models, like a deep sea, these are open source. And Bitcoin is open source. You can see all the code forever from the first one to the last one. And we have to be mindful, and I didn't understand the significance of having a code that was open source versus closed. But open source allows... people to review and see what's actually going on. When people are trying to maximize profits, they do closed source where you don't know what's actually going on. Microsoft is closed. It's proprietary. You can't see what's going on in there. I think sometimes that can be very dangerous because the things that are being done are things that might be harmful to us. Facebook, of course, is closed source. All the major... in the tech space, you don't know what's happening on the inside. And open source projects, even when you look at
your Android phone, Linux is an open source device. platform. So literally, I think what we're seeing now is how do we take as much control as we can of the innovation and not be harmed by it? And I think in the space of the blockchain technology, we see, again, banks and these financial industries taking as much control as they can, and we need to be vigilant. Freedom is not just a destination. It's a journey, and we have to be vigilant even in the technologies that we use.
00:28:25
Speaker 1: 26 away from the top there. Brother Sinclair Skinner, you want to jump in on this conversation? Family, reach out to us at 800-450-7876. Brother Sinclair, you talked about the closed source. The groups that you mentioned, all of them are calling for us. a halt in AI, artificial intelligence. What's going on there? Can you explain what's happening with that? And how do you feel? And with the people that you talk to, especially overseas, our brothers on the continent, what are they saying about AI?
00:28:55
Speaker 2: Well, AI overseas is... It's the same, like, again, you know, it's just like what we call crypto colonialism. Like, none of these technologies are inherently good, you know, or inherently bad. It's the hands of the people using them. So we definitely have the same thing going on with crypto technology where you have folks who want to exploit as many of our people as possible. It's happening on the continent as well as happening here in the United States. The trick part, and this is the part that gets hard, is that somebody who's been a co-founder of a tech startup where we're literally undercapitalized, we've got big ideas, big dreams, but we don't have big capitalization. Once you see these major... players saying they need regulation, in some ways what they're saying is we want to create a moat. We now have the biggest share of the market. How do we make sure that a new incumbent doesn't come here and usurp or undermine our incumbency, our largeness? We're going to now call for regulations, regulations that allow for those who are currently in the space to use that position to now set a moat around their business model so that other people can't get in. Those are the things I think can be very problematic, even in the crypto space. When we got in early and said, look, we're going to build something better than the banks, better than Western Union to treat our people more fair and send money because it doesn't cost this much to send data. Like it literally was just a system of oppression using a legacy money gram Western Union system to exploit our people. But us coming to change that would have been difficult if they had put rules to stop us from actually entering that space. So in one hand, you want to protect the ability to innovate. And then on the other side, you want to make sure that the consumers and the people are not being harmed. That being said, I mean, you know, the banks that we talk about, you know, the Barclays and these banks,
I mean, they were founded off the rape, killing and stealing and enslavement of our people. So what happens, they kind of like put a suit on, redo their LinkedIn profile and change up their Wikipedia page. And you think these banks got to where they were because they were so smart and so gracious when really they committed crimes against humanity. So now those are the organizations that are telling people what the rules should be to keep other people out of these industries. And I think that's one of the things that I've seen happen, and we have to be concerned. We definitely need to make sure that there's rules. It's fair. I think that's a good point. But then the question is, who's making the rules for whom? Are these the Epstein-class people doing it again, making rules that seem like it's for the people, but it's just for a handful of folks to continue their monopoly of exploitation? And again, I think as we look at Congress, we look at many of these large organizations that NGOs, we saw the Epstein files. We know that these people collude to work together. They give us an illusion of inclusion, of being able to have a say-so in a system. But when I see large organizations fighting each other, I don't know if they're really fighting or is this something being used to distract the masses. to make us think that this is what it's about while they're already cutting their checks with each other. So I just say stay skeptical. Be skeptical of crypto just like you're skeptical of the credit card as you're skeptical of Wall Street. None of these things are inherently good for us. So we've got to be very vigilant on how we deal with it. And that's why it's important, again, back to the Black Blockchain Summit, when we share this information so our people at least have the information to make a decision. When the Internet first came out, I started college in 87 in Macon County, Alabama, Tuskegee University, Booker T. Washington, 1881. And I was being exposed to things that many of our communities didn't because I was in college. And I was an engineering student. Now, I was blessed. My dad was in the military. I wasn't blessed because of the military. But my dad was able to, he was a Vietnam warrior. He was over there in Asia during the war. But he literally learned to become a computer analyst from the military. And we always had an Apple IIe computer. We got our first computer at our house in 1983. Wow. So, literally being able to understand these technologies, we need to make sure we spread this information to everybody in our community so that we have a say-so. We're not just being consumers, but we are the makers of these technologies. So, with the Black Blockchain Summit, that's a key part of what we're doing.
00:34:00
Speaker 8: Right.
00:34:01
Speaker 1: Now, Tyrell, hold that thought right there, because we're going to step aside and check the news first, and I'll let you finish up. And also, when you come back, tell us about if people look like me and you are involved in these decision-making activities. rulings for these projects. Family, you too can join our conversation with our guest Sinclair Skinner. He's a world traveler. He's also having a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University at the end of the week. We'll tell you more about that. If you want to get in on this discussion, hit us up at 800-450-7876 and we'll take your phone calls next. And Grand Rising family, thanks for waking up with us on this Monday morning and starting your week with us at 15 minutes away from the top of the hour. I guess this world traveler, humanitarian, and a tech guy. His name is Sinclair Skinner. You've heard him here before. He's holding a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University at the end of the week. We're going to talk more about that. Before we go back to him, on a serious note, though, family, we're going to offer our condolences to the family of Minister Louis Farrakhan and the entire Nation of Islam on the passing of Minister Farrakhan's eldest daughter, Betsy Jean Farrakhan. Betsy Jean Farrakhan was 72. Coming up later this morning, we're going to hear from Dr. Tyrone Powers. He's a former FBI agent. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff, national, international stuff with Dr.
00:35:11
Speaker 9: Powers.
00:35:12
Speaker 1: Later this week, you're going to hear from Professor James Small, also a metaphysician and master herbalist. Dr. B will join us. And also a former Tuskegee mayor, Johnny Ford, will be here. So if you are in Baltimore, keep that radio locked in tight on 1010 WLB. If you're in the DMV, the Washington Metropolitan Area, we're on 1450 WOL. All right, Brother St. Clair, my question to you, in that space that you're in with these tech guys making all these decisions internationally, are there a lot of people who look like us in the decision-making roles?
00:35:44
Speaker 2: No, I mean, there's not a lot of people making decisions that look like us. But the people that are in this space, there's many people that look like us that are never brought to the forefront. And that's one of the things that we always do. We say Satoshi is black, so Satoshi Nakamura, which is the pseudonym of the person who created Bitcoin. And they don't know who it is. And we say, well, if you don't know who it is, it just as well could be a black person, even a black woman at that, or a group of black people. That being said, any innovation from, you know, they always try to say Edison, it was a light bulb, but we understand it was Louis Lattimore, the same with this particular technology. We have some of the earliest, uh, pioneers in cryptography that are, uh, are black. And then even in this space, uh, you know, one of our speakers who comes every year is a brother named, uh, uh, Reginald, uh, um, Reggie, uh, I almost said Reggie Newport. But we have like literally the people who have made all this possible. And Reggie Milton, Lamar Wilson, some of these are some amazing black folks
that have been in the space. And then when it comes to policy, people like Clem Messador. again, these are Black people who've been key in making sure that Black people and people all over the world are included in a way that doesn't give just a few racist tech bros the access. I mean, that's one thing I learned about Silicon Valley, unfortunately, that so much of what you would see in the South, you know, I've spent time, of course, in Alabama with Tuskegee, but some of the behavior I found in Silicon Valley, if it had been in Alabama, you would have been clear that it was racism. But since it was Silicon Valley and they used these special words and acronyms and they were talking about these big ideas, A person with big ideas can be racist too. A person with big ideas can be sexist, misogynist. So these ideologies are the problem. It's not just about someone that's being bright. In the crypto space, they talk about the underbank, how you can make sure that people who don't have access to sending or receiving or storing value, that these technologies can help with that. Well, that's true, but if the people who are actually building don't see the humanity in all the people in the world, they will... intentionally create a tiered society based on their racist ideology where some people deserve more and some people deserve less. I mean, again, white supremacist ideology, and I'm not using Francis Cresswell who taught me, but that puts Europeans at a premium and puts Africans at a discount if you just look at it like that. So if someone is using that ideology as they're building something, they're going to not provide the same opportunities to everyone. They're going to give some a privilege and some they're going to deny. And that's the issue that we are constantly fighting. And again, with all these changes in technology, AI, you know, when you're dealing with people who believe Christopher Columbus discovered America as their way of thinking, what kind of artificial intelligence are they going to create? And so we have to be very vigilant. We cannot wait. No one's coming to save us. We've got to save ourselves. And I think as we're noticing the world change, and I'm not just talking about the gas prices or the genocides and the murdering and war crimes that are being committed. by the United States government, but literally the fact that the world that we were born into is going to be very different than the world three years from now. And we need to be prepared. We need to be the ones creating that new world. It won't be like we've seen with the dominance of the U.S. dollar. It won't be with the dominance of U.S. militarism. What will that world look like? Well, we're not going to wait to see what happens. We're going to make what happens. And I think that's why technology is helpful, because it allows you to do things that you more in a traditional way would have taken a bigger infrastructure. Our ability to reach people through our application
all over the world. Like we literally reached over 160,000 people that we've touched through I Love Black People. And it's, again, we wouldn't have been able to do that without technology. So again, The ideology is everything. It's Black Blockchain Summit. The black is first. It's about our people first and then the technology. And we've definitely included AI as a part of the conversation because it's important as we talk about all these emerging technologies that we keep a frame of reference that's pro-our community and pro-humanity. That's not where Silicon Valley is. Silicon Valley is about maintaining a system of hegemony, where a few people control the masses, and we have to do something about that. To be candid, it is changing. It's unsustainable for a handful of people to continually try to destroy what God has created. They're doomed. The people who are conspiring to exploit our people collectively like that, their time is running out. So it's unsustainable what they've done in the world.
00:41:25
Speaker 1: All right. Eight away from the top of our family, that's the voice of Sinclair Skinner. He's a world traveler, a humanitarian, and we're hosting a summit on black blockchain at Howard University at the end of the week. Brother Sinclair, is there an equivalent to Silicon Valley on the continent, anywhere on the continent?
00:41:44
Speaker 2: No, and no, and thank God, no. Let me just say this. We are the original innovators. I think what Dr. Wright teaches about, it's not that we're some black superiority, but it's about primacy, about being first. And our people have been civilized since the beginning. We're the first civilizations. So I think when you start talking about innovation and creating things and building the world that we live in, our people created the foundation of language and everything else that you see taking place. So I think it's really important that we understand our own value instead of trying to get a Silicon Valley value. So as it relates to innovation, again, our people are so resourceful and so innovative. They say necessity is the mother of invention. But some people say desperation is the father. And I think some ways, some of the things that we find ourselves faced with have allowed us to create some very innovative and incredible solutions to big problems. So we're definitely not looking for a Silicon Valley in Africa. We're really looking at reconnecting our people to our original purpose and what we've been building for literally thousands of years before there was a Silicon Valley.
00:43:13
Speaker 1: I've got to ask you about the BRICS nations because they're considering using– or maybe using crypto as a currency as the world's– replacing the dollar, if you will, the U.S. dollar. What are you hearing about it? Because they've been meeting recently. I know many of them are going to be at the UN this week– When the U.N. General Assembly opens. But what are you hearing about crypto and BRICS?
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Well, what you're saying is people say that they no longer want the U.S. dollar to control crypto. The economic system and, you know, the monetary system and the financial system, you know, the petrodollar, all these things are instruments connected back to a centralized U.S.-dominated world. And again, when we say U.S., you know, I don't want people to think that's somehow anti-America because the politics in these systems in America aren't controlled by American voters. It's controlled by the Epstein class. It's controlled by a cabal of people that we don't even know. So when we started talking about crypto and what countries are doing, again, they're really speaking to other ways to create systems that aren't depending on the U.S., but allow other institutions to control how money is moved, how value is stored, and they're using alternatives. So those alternatives are being– crypto is one of many. But I think it's good. Again, when I used to talk about early on with crypto, when you pull out a plastic card with a brown strip on the back, that brown strip is a cassette tape, like when we used to use to play music. The fact that we still are using cassette tape on the back of a card, a plastic card, to exchange money is ridiculous. So the system that we currently have is a legacy system. They're not here because it's the best efficient way. It's because it's controlled by the United States. It's controlled by those who have interests in maintaining the status quo. It's not the best. It's The power in the hands of a few people will keep us in this position. What we're saying and what you see, I think, in some of these BRICS nations is that there are other ways that we can connect people that doesn't use the U.S. dollar, and we can see more– we can see less violence and hegemony. I do a lot of work in Zimbabwe. We have an office there, and the sanctions of the U.S. government– manipulated Zimbabwe through the dollar. By literally cutting off their banks from being able to use dollars in corresponding bank relationships has still made Zimbabwe economically struggle in ways that have really probably killed and harmed literally thousands and thousands of people in Zimbabwe just by weaponizing the dollar. by using it to undermine people and say that OFIC sanctions don't allow you to do these things. And if you touch the U.S. dollar, then your company or your institution will no longer be able to do business anywhere. Like, that's a lot of power. And it's being done, and not because U.S. voters are voting for these things. Most people I meet didn't know that Zimbabwe had sanctions for over 20 years. But these are things that are being done in our name. By those who control our politicians.
00:46:56
Speaker 1: So, again, and hold that thought right there, Brother Sinclair, got to step aside. When you come back, though, I'm glad you mentioned that. How do they react to you when you're overseas dealing with our brothers and sisters on the
continent? Do they see you as a part of what the American, you know, American society is thinking about? Because they believe that. Donald Trump represents us, whether we like it or not. Do they associate his policies with you? That's my question, because that's important for folks who travel. So I'll let you answer that when we get back. Two minutes away from the top there, our family just waking up. Our guest is Brother Sinclair Skinner. He's a world traveler, also having a Black Boxing Summit at Howard University. We're going to talk about that when we get back as well. You want to hit us on this conversation, reach out to us at 800-450-7876, and we'll take your phone calls next.
00:47:50
Speaker 2: I would say 15.
00:47:52
Speaker 1: And Grand Rising family, thanks for staying with us on this Monday morning. Thanks for starting your week with us at 22 minutes after the top there with our guest, Brother Sinclair Skinner. Brother Sinclair is an engineer. He's also a world traveler, entrepreneur, business person as well. He's hosting a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University at the end of the week. We're talking about Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is one of the main Bitcoins. This is the list that I know. So I'm going to ask you, Brother Sinclair, to connect the dots between cryptocurrency and blockchain. What is that? And I just looked it up on my phone here. It says Bitcoin went up and hit a 90-day high. I don't know what all this means. So if you can break down all of this for the folks who aren't initiated, maybe Kevin can jump in as well because he's been long touting Bitcoin. Go ahead, Brother Sinclair.
00:48:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were asking about the fact that you can touch gold and this data thing being something that you can't touch. I think that's fair. You know, zeros and ones, binary, hexadecimal. I do remember back in the old days of computer software programming. That being said, data is probably one of the most valuable commodities that we have. Our data is everything. So maybe, you know, 20 years ago, when she said data, people would be like, what is it? That isn't that valuable. Now that's, the biggest thing we need to do is protect our data. Data is important. Even when we talk about AI, what is AI based on? Large language models, which is what?
00:49:30
Speaker 3: Data.
00:49:31
Speaker 2: So data is definitely very, very precious and important. And if you have encrypted data that cannot be counterfeited, it becomes even possibly more valuable. And then when you have it in a way that people are willing to exchange it through consensus, it becomes more valuable, some could even say, than gold. Because the thing that you said you can touch is not just a feature, but it's also a limitation.
00:50:01
Speaker 10: Why?
00:50:02
Speaker 2: Because again, if I have gold and I'm trying to buy something somewhere, what do I do? I ship it to them and then they exchange it for a service. Gold has lots of limitations because it is physical. Because you can't, it's not portable like something digital. So again, as we move and innovation takes place, Again, trying to find a way to store your gold somewhere underneath your bed in a shoebox can become very cumbersome and really probably not useful if you're trying to move around. But if you can keep it encrypted and you can have it someplace where it's harder to get access to for other people, even offline, then you now are starting to talk about ways that you can create a store of value that is better than gold. And so many people do talk about Bitcoin as something that's better than gold because of the fact that gold is more easily confiscated because of its physical nature, and it's harder to move around in gold. All right.
00:51:13
Speaker 1: Make that connection.
00:51:14
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:51:16
Speaker 2: So that data being encrypted and me being able to exchange it becomes a part of the power, not a flaw. And so even when we're now using our dollars, we use our dollars now less as paper. Which, again, I used to hear people say, well, isn't Bitcoin using more energy? Well, it probably takes more energy to create those nickels and dimes and those quarters than it does to create the data that we call Bitcoin that's encrypted. You know, bringing that dollar bill, the $ 20 bill, you're going to chop down trees and do a whole bunch of transportation. And now diesel fuel is going up. It's going to take a heck of a lot less diesel to move Bitcoin around than to move those quarters, nickels and dimes. I don't think we're making pennies anymore. So the truth is. This innovation is actually more efficient than the current monetary system, and that even though the current monetary system has a physical presence, most of the transactions that we do with the dollar is done digitally. But unfortunately, these digital transactions are not controlled by us. They're controlled oftentimes, what, by your bank, who will determine if you have access to your money or not, and they can shut you off. They can actually close you off from access to your money if they choose so. They can freeze your accounts. But those same entities cannot freeze your Bitcoin. And that becomes an opportunity there that I don't want the state or these companies that literally were founded off the enslavement of our ancestors. I don't want these institutions to control my value any longer. They've controlled it too long, and they're not adding. Again, they've extracted from me. They're charging me large interest. They're doing all kinds of things. They're telling me I got to come and use my card, and it's got to be a plastic card, and now my card doesn't work. All that third-party interaction with the thing you call the bank or financial institution is not necessary. It's not required. It may be what people are used to doing, but it's not the only way that we can exchange value or store our value. We don't need Western Union anymore. We don't need Bank of
America. We don't need Barclays. But again, it's in their interest, though, to make sure that we stay connected to them so they can keep, they call it rent-seeking, so they can keep extracting value from us. So these are alternatives. Now, again, none of this is inherently good. Literally, people can steal from you if you have crypto. And there's lots of fugazi. What happened with some of this crypto stuff now you hear, Bitcoin became so expensive for people to process it. They call them miners, the people who get the reward of Bitcoin and all over the world helping process each block of data. Those people are called miners. Mining meaning that they dig like a typical miner. You can dig and dig and not find any precious mineral. With miners, they can process these blocks, but if they don't process it first, they don't win the Bitcoin. They call it mining for the, these are the miners, but I'm using the analogies with the physical world and why they use that word in the Bitcoin world. With that being said though, You still found it to be more expensive to, as more people were competing to mine Bitcoin, it meant that they had to have faster computers. And then it got to a point where some of the people with the fastest computers had to spend a lot of money on these computers. And so people who just were getting interested were like, man, I'm not going to be able to mine Bitcoin. What can I do to get Bitcoin but get it cheaper? And what people started to do is they came up with their own coin. So they came up with the Sinclair Carl coin, and they would tell people, look, this is cheaper than Bitcoin. Why don't you buy my Sinclair and Carl coin? And people would buy those coins. It was encrypted data, but it wasn't Bitcoin. It was just somebody who decided to make their own coin, which is, you can do it. It's a free world. But their tokens.
00:55:39
Speaker 2: Were artificially being created just like the original Bitcoin, but it wasn't the same Bitcoin. They were trading off the reputation of Bitcoin. Hey, Bitcoin is so expensive. Why don't you buy my coin? And as soon as you bought that coin, they took your money and bought more Bitcoin.
00:55:58
Speaker 7: Why?
00:55:58
Speaker 2: Because they knew Bitcoin's store of value was greater than their Sinclair Carl coin. And now you have a proliferation of all these telling people or trying to represent themselves as the next Bitcoin because people feel like, again, this is all psychological. This has nothing to do with real technology or anything. People feel like they missed out on Bitcoin so they want to get the next Bitcoin. When it's probably– I'm what they call a Bitcoin maximalist, even though we're open to other tokens. I'm going to say who I am. Our conference is open to everyone who has different ideas, and we embrace that. But there's only one Bitcoin, but people will use that as a way to say you missed this– they call it FOMO, fear of missing out. All these little– I mean these– what do you
call it, abbreviations. But literally, people think that they now want to get another token because it's cheaper than getting Bitcoin. But the truth, Bitcoin, you don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin. Like, if it's worth $ 80, 000 for one Bitcoin right now, you don't have to get one Bitcoin. You can literally, just like a dollar bill is divisible into pennies, or it used to be, they're in circulation, even if you don't make them. So you can get a hundredth of a dollar by owning a penny, right? Well, Bitcoin is saying is, has a similar, uh, uh, is divisible in a similar way.
00:57:34
Speaker 3: Hey, Sinclair, let me ask you about that, by the way, Sinclair, because now you can get, you know, back in the day you had to get Bitcoin from, you know, specifically the blockchain, right? But, uh, now you can get Bitcoin on cash app, on PayPal, uh, They got the ATM machines. What about that? And what's the effect of that now that you're able to get Bitcoin at all these odd places, including Cash App?
00:58:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it gives more access. I think that, you know, again, we used to, in the early days, people had to find, I forget the name of it. There used to be an application or a website called.
00:58:20
Speaker 3: Where you meet.
00:58:23
Speaker 2: Somebody, exchange Bitcoin, and it just kind of like was a Craigslist, a thing where people used Craigslist too. Like there was a bunch of ways, but there was ways that people were trying to get folks to meet each other so that in real time, I hand you the dollar bill and you send me right then and there the crypto and it's all done in person. Now, there are other ways that third parties have been set up that allow people to receive and send, we oftentimes call them exchanges, these Bitcoin for other things of value, like dollar bills. The fact that we have those things, I think, is important because it gives... more people access.
00:59:11
Speaker 3: But you still need a Bitcoin wallet in spite of where you're purchasing your Bitcoin. Can you tell us about that? The wallet is still more important, isn't it?
00:59:25
Speaker 2: Well, let me just say this. This is why it's interesting. The wallet is important, but the truth is the wallet is really the place that you're storing digital information. The truth of it is the actual digital information is actually stored on the actual blockchain itself. which is literally a network of computers and nodes that don't exist. The computers exist physically, but the actual network is literally all digital. So when you say someone has a wallet, when we have wallets, what we really are saying, we're storing the information that allows us access to that network. So you literally, if there was no electricity, you could actually write down your password private keys and write down your public keys on a piece of paper. You could actually, some people even make a point, you could actually use a tattoo that puts your private keys so that if you were ever someplace
and somebody searched you they couldn't find your information because your your private keys was under your armpit written down on your armpit somewhere so the truth is the wallet is a device that stores this information but the actual bitcoin information is on the blocks of the bitcoin network which is what we call the blockchain.
01:00:57
Speaker 3: We're talking about that key that key is uh It's a long number. I mean, wouldn't it make an interesting tattoo?
01:01:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:06
Speaker 2: But the point is that when people who are, you know, when they came out with the beeper and the pagers, the people who used those were oftentimes doctors and folks doing not necessarily good things. Big Boy had some of his origin stories in places where people were under crisis. and needed a place to put money where the banks failed or other institutions failed. Your example is beautiful because it's talking about systems that people still trust. People trust Cash App. So there's a system there that even though we don't control Cash App, people are comfortable with saying, I have some Bitcoin on Cash App or Bitcoin I got from Cash App. That being said, There's other parts of the world where they don't trust those institutions. So their ability to have access to electricity or a place to store, if they wrote it or had a paper or tattooed themselves, these are other ways that this information can be saved. I'm not saying it's the best way. I'm just saying in these conditions– Again, as the dollar becomes more difficult in its value, these large institutions are probably going to do more sketchy, nefarious things. Having your own keys that you control that are not connected to outside people is probably more difficult. And one of the things that we're discussing at our summit is how to best protect your private keys so that you can't be scammed. I got hacked back in 2018 for around 50 bitcoins. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. Kevin, I said the same thing.
01:03:10
Speaker 1: I said, whoa.
01:03:12
Speaker 8: Yeah, man.
01:03:13
Speaker 1: If you could imagine. Well, fellas, what do you mean? Put it in dollars and cents for us so we can say what.
01:03:20
Speaker 3: All right.
01:03:22
Speaker 2: At the time, 2018, I think we were around the 20s, maybe the high teens.
01:03:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like around the teens or something. But look, today, Bitcoin is $ 84, 000. So one Bitcoin, right? So imagine 50 of them. You see what I'm saying, Carl?
01:03:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't all my Bitcoin, but it was quite a bit of it. So when I got hacked, again, I had left Bitcoin because I was moving Bitcoin. And I was using Bitcoin on a regular basis throughout my life.
01:04:00
Speaker 1: Hold that story right there, Brother Sinclair. We've got to step aside and check the latest news, traffic and weather in our different cities. We'll come back and we'll pick it up. Family, you're just checking in. Our guest is Brother Sinclair Skinner. Kevin's with us as well, talking about he's hosting a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University this weekend, all about cryptocurrency and stuff like that. You want to get in on the conversation or know more about the conference, reach out to us right now at 800-450-7876. We'll take your phone calls as we look at the news. That's next. Thanks for starting your week with us. 15 away from the top there with our guest, Brother Sinclair Skinner. Brother Sinclair has a conference, a summit, if you will, at Howard University over the weekend. It's a black blockchain summit. And if you're interested in cryptocurrency and how it works, this is the place you need to be. Or if you've got some young people who are trying to get them involved for the other folks to get a soak up all the knowledge, this is the place they need to be as well. Before we go back, you know, let me just remind you, come up later this morning, we're going to speak with Dr. Sinclair. Pardon me, just lost his name here.
01:05:09
Speaker 2: Dr.
01:05:09
Speaker 1: Tyrone Powers, former FBI agent, is going to join us. We're going to talk a lot of stuff, national and international stuff with Dr.
01:05:16
Speaker 2: Powers.
01:05:16
Speaker 1: Also, whoa, wow, we have to offer our condolences to the family of Minister Louis Farrakhan and all the members of the Nation of Islam and the past few ministers of Farrakhan's eldest daughter, that would be Betsy Jean Farrakhan. She passed away late last week. She was 72. And coming up later this week, you're going to hear from Professor James Small. Also, you're going to hear from a metaphysician and master herbalist. Dr. B will be here. And former Tuskegee Bear, Johnny Ford, will also join us. So if you are in Baltimore, keep that radio locked in tight on 1010 WLB. Free in the DMV, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan here around 1450 WL. All right, Brother Sinclair, you're about to tell us a little story, so I'm going to let you go ahead and do that.
01:05:54
Speaker 2: Well, I was just talking about the fact that it's important that you be able to control your keys and some of the things that can go wrong when using third parties. And I directly was hacked. And again, it wasn't my Bitcoin was hacked. It was these third party companies. So, again, part of our conversation with the Black Blockchain Summit is literally how do you protect yourself? How do you protect? You know, we talk about having control. over something like your finance and not trusting someone else, that's a lot of responsibility and it can be done wrong. And I'm one of those people who has done it wrong. So I want to make sure that other people can learn from the mistakes I've made and other people have made. And so you can make either new ones or avoid those mistakes. So again, um, I think that's why it's important to come to the summit and meet brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers that are in the space who are conscientious about what we need to do as a
collective. It's called the Black Blockchain Summit, so the Blacks first. And we make sure that the technology is relevant and actually can be useful for our community.
01:07:02
Speaker 3: Well, Brother Sinclair, at one time, Bitcoin was anonymous. You didn't need to put in the ID or anything, just needed that key. But now they're requiring a lot more identification. What's that about and why does that work opposed to the anonymous?
01:07:25
Speaker 2: Well, they call it pseudonymous, I guess. Originally, just like we were saying that it's blocks of data. So the very first block of data created in the Bitcoin blockchain is called the Genesis block, you know. You know, as many atheists as I've met in this space, the fact that they call it Genesis is interesting, but maybe it's not a biblical word. I always thought it was a biblical word. The first one. Right, right. It means beginning.
01:07:51
Speaker 3: Genesis means beginning.
01:07:53
Speaker 2: So the beginning, and you have every transaction, every block that's ever been made is stored forever.
01:08:04
Speaker 1: Right.
01:08:05
Speaker 2: So the truth is the blocks of data don't have your name on it. So could you be anonymous? Yes. But literally that data is actually stored. And every time that data moves is recorded every transaction ever. So, If you can now connect somebody with their private keys and their name, you can track their movements. If you don't know, then you don't know who it was. And then they have these things called washers and tumblers where they can kind of mix things up and even make it harder. But the truth is the people who now have exchanges that people are purchasing Bitcoin or selling Bitcoin to, are now being regulated by the government and they have things called KYC. People always love using these acronyms, but KYC just means know your customer, okay? Know yourself. why you're a customer or AML, anti-money laundering laws. So in order to be allowed to operate in certain jurisdictions, these entities, banks, finance, fintechs are required to know their customer. Who is this person? Now, that's not a requirement of Bitcoin, the blockchain. That's not a part of the software or the code that Bitcoin has been written in. That's something that's been done in addition to the Bitcoin by those who are now trying to operate under the rules of the particular jurisdiction, be it the U.S. government or, again, a lot of these rules are state to state. So that's why you would need to give an ID. It's not a requirement of Bitcoin. It's a requirement of local jurisdictions.
01:10:04
Speaker 3: And with the dollar losing value and something like Bitcoin adding continually interest, if you will, how do you balance that out and make sure that again, you don't get hacked. Make sure that once upon a time you could get a card that had your Bitcoin on it, like if you went to one of those other venues. Which one was that? Well, blockchain has one, and then there was I can't think of the other one right now, but you could get a Bitcoin card and use it and convert it to cash right there. Do you recommend anything like that in the event that You know, the dollar is losing its value, but you've got value and interest in that, including Cash App. You could convert your dollar into Bitcoin.
01:10:59
Speaker 2: So I think people say this out loud, and this is what I've heard. If you're going to have a position in Bitcoin, that position probably should be determined by your position. your forecast of the value of the dollar. The stronger you think the dollar is going to maintain itself, maybe the least you should put your position in Bitcoin. But if you are skeptical of the future value of the dollar and its dominance, you probably should increase your position in Bitcoin alternatives outside.
01:11:36
Speaker 1: Of the dollar.
01:11:37
Speaker 3: You want to diversify your... You're booklet anyway, right?
01:11:42
Speaker 2: Well, you say booklet. If you're diversifying within the same institutions that are dictated by the dollar... It may not be as adverse as someone might think. Wall Street is a U.S. stock exchange, so it's been dominant, just like the dollar has. If the dollar loses dominance, what happens to the financial institutions that have been built on it. It probably creates a problem there too. So one would make the argument that maybe you shouldn't even, if you were skeptical of the dollar, you should then also be skeptical of the financial institutions that depend on the dollar.
01:12:31
Speaker 3: That's why President Joe Biden was trying to use a digital dollar using the blockchain. And of course, now the current president created his own, but that's That's another story.
01:12:45
Speaker 2: Well, this scary, again, I'm not calling it scary fear. I don't fear God. But I'm going to say this. What happens is the U.S. is deeply in debt, you know, so it sells different financial instruments so that people can basically bet on the success of the U.S. in the future. And I guess treasury bills, whether it's long-term, short-term, I'm an engineer, so then this is financial advice. I think we all need economic advice, though. That's the thing that we really need. But with that being said, A digital dollar in some ways could be a scam or an attempt by the U.S. to get access to individual people outside of the U.S., outside of large institutions, and spread the debt buying around. So if somebody can have access to buying digital dollars, it can artificially prop up the dollar. when now places like China and even Japan in a way is selling off their treasury bills. So before, the U.S. could depend on large institutions, Saudi Arabia, other places, to literally buy U.S.
01:14:04
Speaker 4: Debt.
01:14:05
Speaker 2: Well, if you get a digital dollar, then there's a chance what they are trying to do is prop up the value of the dollar even more by making it usable internationally, digitally, in ways that it can't be used now. So the
person who now has that digital dollar doesn't even necessarily have a U.S. bank account. They're now operating using a digital dollar that's literally controlled by the Federal Reserve directly without a middle person making it.
01:14:40
Speaker 3: And China didn't accept the idea of the digital dollar at first. And But now they're slowly adopting to that. Am I correct about that?
01:14:51
Speaker 2: Well, the real, real, real, not real, depends on how, you know, they say first principles, you go back to the beginning. In the middle, that's where we are. But actually, China was huge in Bitcoin originally. They had so much energy that they were using the mine, and then they got very concerned because they had– I forget what they call it. I think it's called capital flight. What happens in authoritarians– again, China is controlled by the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. Now, when I made a point to somebody about that, I said, well, look, y'all are controlled by the CCP. I need more freedom. They said, well, at least we know who controls us. Y'all are controlled by the Epstein class, and you don't even know who they are. I thought that was a reasonable point to be made. But what happens with authoritarian situations like a CCP, their concern is people who are making money being able to remove that money without being able to be controlled. So people use sometimes paintings. They'll quote unquote have a painting worth a million dollars and use that painting and convert it back into cash.
01:16:04
Speaker 3: That's called EFT though, right? Electronically fungible tokens.
01:16:11
Speaker 2: Well, EFTs, now, again, this is now securities. So those securities are in a whole bunch of different ways. You can see those manifest. But again, these are instruments that are being created by somebody to take and use the value of Bitcoin indirectly. And so if you don't control the actual underlying asset of Bitcoin directly, that non-fungible, that fungible token could be manipulated by somebody else because you don't actually control the keys of the underlying Bitcoin token. So no matter what instruments people have, just know if it's not your private keys, it's nacho cheese. And I don't mean nacho cheese.
01:16:59
Speaker 3: I mean like your money.
01:17:00
Speaker 1: I love that thought right there, Brother Sinclair. We got to step aside for a few moments and take a short break. When we come back, Stan in Chicago has a question for you. Family, you too can join our discussion with Brother Sinclair Skinner. He's hosting a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University. At the end of the week, if you want more information, reach out to us at 800-450-7876, and we'll take your phone calls next. And Grad Rising family, thanks for waking up with us on this Monday morning and starting your work week with us. Our guest is Brother Sinclair Skinner. Brother Sinclair is a world traveler, is also an engineer, is hosting a Black Blockchain Summit. taking place at howard
university at the end of this week we're going to talk about that but let's get into this whole crypto issue with our brother sinclair because some people say that crypto is a crypto is a ponzi scheme what how do you see it.
01:17:49
Speaker 2: I think it's a great point uh what we've been blessed and this is again being based having this event at howard university that one of the most amazing universities on the planet. I think about when people bring up Ivy League schools and the type of people that they've produced, and you look at the HBCUs and the type of people that they've produced, it's not even close. Again, the amazing brains that have come out of HBCUs, and you think about the types of folks that have come out of these Ivy League schools that created some of the worst problematic issues in the world, I mean, we stand head and shoulders. So our purpose in doing the work we do is to make sure we don't have scams. And one of the things that we've been able to do, and this is, you know, I've been a Muriel Bowser fan. One of her departments, one of the departments in Washington, D.C., is the Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking. And unlike most states, D.C. is not a state, it's not a city, but it has the functions. And because we don't have real sovereignty, we don't have a vote, we don't control our budget, but literally we have people like Commissioner Karima Woods who comes to our summit with her team And they literally go through these Ponzi scams, schemes, and the things that really matter to our people to make sure that these gaps in protection are there to protect the consumers. So, I mean, we make sure we have– and this is on Friday. We literally have a workshop Friday afternoon where literally commissioners, woods, staff– It's actually been taking students and the participants through so many different scenarios that they're seeing at the level of her department to help make sure that all our members, all our attendees are better prepared and not just dealing with crypto-posit schemes, any other type of AI and other type of schemes that are being used to steal money from us. So we're definitely grateful to make sure that scams is a key essential part of what we're here to address with the work we're doing. We do not tolerate the exploitation of our people using technology or otherwise. So definitely shout out to the Commissioner. And she's a listener of your show, so she's probably definitely well informed on how to connect to our people. But shout out to the Department of Insurance, Security, and Banking.
01:20:34
Speaker 1: All right. Tell us about the conference, though. What can we expect?
01:20:39
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I tell you what, one of the things we're super, super hyped about is we have a pitch competition and we've got $ 10, 000 worth of prizes. And again, the pitch competition is centered around ideas that will solve problems in our black community. So we had a deadline on that. I think we had about 40 some
people sign up. and we're now looking at the actual submissions. So that Friday, we're going to have a first round where they're going to give us the pitches. You can come and watch and even vote. We're setting it up where there's some crowd participation where you can vote for the different people that are presenting. And then Saturday, we'll have the winner be selected, and then we also have an essay contest. uh, for high school students. So the pitch competition is, is focused on college students. And then the, uh, we have an essay contest, uh, focused on our, uh, high school students. So that's been a real key thing. If they want to go, they go to black blockchain summit.com and they can sign up for the, uh, uh, um, essay contest. So we try to make sure that everything we do gives access to intergenerational participation. We don't believe in generational chauvinism. There's not one generation that's going to fix all these things. We think it's a collaborative effort. So we literally have members of our community in every level that we can participate in. And again, just like our essay contest is using innovation to stop gun violence. This is what we're talking about. How do we use the knowledge and technologies that we have to help fight these key things that are harming our people? And we've got to make sure these technologies are relevant. Again, I think when we talk about these data centers where literally these super rich billionaires want the taxpayer to fit the bill, for all the money they're making. And then they'll come back and say, well, you want to use AI? Well, you've got to have data centers. Well, that... We may want to use AI, or we may not, but that system, a model where you socialize the expenses and then you privatize all the profits, that's played out. If that's your capitalism, that's really played out. If that's your socialism, that's played out. They literally socialize all the expenses, and then all the people got to pay for the data centers, but then ChatGPT is owned by a few people who make all the profits. It doesn't make sense. The model's bad. And again, I even tell people we should innovate and stop having antiquated conversations about economic models. We can come up with a new model that's better than capitalism, that's better than socialism. But we should definitely make sure that whatever we're doing with the talents we have, that we come back and bring it back to make sure it helps our people, help our community. And again, I think it's important for us to just talk about how at the Black Blockchain Summit, we're making sure that everyone gets a chance, be it somebody in high school, be it somebody in college, somebody out of college, make sure they're able to participate. Students are free. you know, we're child-friendly, you know, we will never turn our people back in that regard. You can go to the website and get your tickets. And again, most tech conferences, you know, cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. We always try to make sure that we leverage sponsorship and help so that we can underwrite the work that we're doing so that many people can participate. And we even see started a nonprofit part of it. You know, we call it Black Blockchain Labs, where people can even donate to what the work we're doing so that we can not just do it at the summit, but we can continue to do the work all year round. So again, you know, the event allows you to participate at whatever level you want to participate. We have as simple as Bitcoin 101, giving you an understanding of how to literally, how this system works. And then there's a thing about your keys where people want to protect themselves. Again, when you have this level of control, there's a lot of responsibility. So you've got to be careful.
01:25:07
Speaker 1: Let me jump in here and ask you to break it down for us, Brother Sinclair, because, you know, everybody's not up to speed like you and Kevin is when it comes to cryptocurrency and blockchains. So if you can break it down to the elementary level for us so we can digest what you're serving up this morning. We'll start with crypto. You know, what is it? How does it work? You know, explain. I want you to go all, you know, as elementary as you can in these discussions. Because, as I mentioned, not everybody's up on par when it comes to, you know, talking about black blockchain and people listening right now, folks on the way to work, away to school. They may want to jump in and come to the conference this weekend at Howard. So what is it we need to know? What do we need to bring? Just break it down for us all the way down.
01:25:54
Speaker 2: All right. Let me break it down. Let me see how far down we can break it. Blockchain is in the word. It's the overall technology. So the Internet is the overall technology. But then it breaks down to so many levels now, right? Blockchain is a very big word, but it includes all these little things, Bitcoin being the most successful blockchain. And when you hear the word blockchain, it's in the word. It's blocks of data connected together called a chain, a chain of data, blockchain. And in that data, those blocks of data, those blocks of data are created by people using their computer to process the information in that data. And for the first time, we had a system where, in a decentralized way, people, computational or computer power, was used to process this data in this block. And they incentivized people to help process the data in the block. They gamified it. They said, whoever can use their computer to help us process, and this is the creator, Satoshi Nakamura, created this program that said, whoever was able to process the data the first would receive compensation through a thing called Bitcoins. So Bitcoin is the reward that's given out to folks who help process this data in these blocks of data. And the crypto is the data that's encrypted that's being processed. And what's important about that is
encrypted data makes for a great store of value because it can't be counterfeited or copied. When we talk about data, if the blocks of data were like our cell phones, you know how you take pictures on your cell phone? Well, you can make copies of that. That's why you got to be careful what pictures you be taking and who you be taking pictures with. So literally, data like that is not encrypted. It's copied. But with Bitcoin, with blockchain, you have data that's encrypted. So now you create something With decentralized groups of people who are using their computer to help you process these blocks of data, and they're rewarded with this encrypted data that says, now you can not connoisseur this. but the ability to create a decentralized encrypted piece of data but it created was an opportunity for someone to say look I'll give you this one-of-a-kind encrypted data if you give me something of value and Most of the people that I talk to, they ask me, well, how does crypto get its value? How does Bitcoin get its value? Well, it's really through a thing we call consensus. And we use consensus. It's not a tech word. It's a social word. Consensus is that we all agree. It's like gold. Gold is a rock. It's on the periodic table. It's literally a rock. Now, the fact that it has value, God didn't tell us it has value. That's... It was through consensus. People collectively said gold has value. Collectively, they say silver has value. Now, when we say these things, it's agreed to based on consensus. Bitcoin got its first marketplace evaluation or the first time someone gave it actual value. We call it Pizza Day. This is going to sound a little silly. But Pizza Day was a day, it might have been 2010 or 11, it might have been 2011. I need to get my dates right. But literally, Pizza Day was when someone gave, I think it was Papa John's pizza. Somebody gave a delivery driver 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. And at that point, the market was created for the value of Bitcoin was at that point, two pizzas for 10,000. That's the market. 10,000 Bitcoin. Now, of course, you had 10,000 Bitcoin. Now, it's worth quite a bit more. But that was the market that took place. So when people ask you, what is the value? Why is Bitcoin going up or why is it going down? It depends on the demand of the Bitcoin. When more people want Bitcoin, the value of it goes up. When less people want Bitcoin, the value goes down. As well as when the dollar, if that's what you're using to price Bitcoin, when the dollar loses value, Bitcoin gains value. When the dollar is stronger, Bitcoin will be perceived to look like it's less valuable. But that's the same thing with a commodity like gold. It has its fluctuations between supply and demand, as well as it has its fluctuation depending on what currency that you're discussing it in. And then with Bitcoin, there's a limited supply. Now, most people think about the U.S. dollar and they think it's worth a dollar, but The truth is, the more dollars that
are made, it actually drives down the value of the dollar. And oftentimes people talk about, well, what's the dollar worth? And they say, well, a dollar is still a dollar, but what the dollar could buy in 1972 is not the same as a dollar could buy in 2022. So it's still a dollar, but the value of it and what it can do is less. So in many ways, as you create more of these dollars in the course of the United States economy, makes the dollars, and they don't even know how many physical dollars are actually in circulation. So when you have that amount of dollars, again, we're dealing right now as you kill people, the United States government is killing people in Persia, in Iran, and now they're closing down the straits. You see the value of oil go up. And oil, again, is something that has a real utility. So it's not just valuable because of consensus. It's valuable because you need it for your car. Now, you could actually have a car without gold or platinum. But so there's some really interesting things when you talk about it. But with crypto, you can see the opportunity that if the dollar is being printed or there's inflation hitting the dollar, people are looking for other places to store value. And they store it in gold and they can store it oftentimes in what we call Bitcoin as a digital gold, a commodity through consensus that people agree has value.
01:32:59
Speaker 1: Well, hold that thought right there, Brother Sinclair. But with gold, at least, it's something you can touch. It's tangible. Can you touch Bitcoin? Is there a coin, you know, like coins and fiat coins, money? Is there something that you can feel, handle, and touch? Or is all this, you know, just numbers on a piece of paper?
01:33:18
Speaker 2: It is literally numbers. And it can be on a piece of paper if you put it on there. Or it can just be on your computer. Or it can be on your thumb drive. So it's data. So... Let's talk about that.
01:33:31
Speaker 1: Well, I'll throw it right there because we're going to take a short break here. I don't want to bring this trend of thought because this is important for folks who don't know much about cryptocurrency and they're going to learn a lot of the blockchain, the black blockchain. Some of this is going to take place in Howard and Vika. Connect those dots with us as well. If you're buying Bitcoin, you say you can't feel it, you can't touch it as opposed to gold or silver. So, you know, how do you know it's there? You know, how do you know what's protected? And what's its relationship to blockchains? to the blockchain because you're having a summit on this this weekend. So I want you to teach us about this when we come back from this short break. 18 minutes after the top there, our family, you too can join our conversation with our guest, Brother Sinclair Skinner. He's a world traveler, entrepreneur, engineer, and is also hosting a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University at the end of the week. If you want to get more information, reach out to us at 800-450-7876 and we'll take your phone calls next. And Grant Rising, family, thanks for starting your week with us. Our guest is Brother Sinclair Skinner. Brother Sinclair is an entrepreneur. He's a world traveler, humanitarian. He's started a program called I Love Black People. But he's also hosting a Black Blockchain Summit at Howard University this weekend. Anything you want to know about cryptocurrency, this is the place you need to be. Having said that, as I mentioned before, we're left with a break. Brother Sinclair, Stan in Chicago has a question for you. He's on line two. Grant Rising, Stan, you're on with Sinclair Skinner.
01:35:07
Speaker 10: Greetings, Grand Rising and Great New Day, Carl, Kevin, Brother Sinclair Skinner. I got about a three-part question. I would say that with everything, there's ups, there's highs, and there's lows. With something as risky as this, there's a lot of upside. But, you know, looking at the other side of the coin, and, of course, this is digital, what happens and how do you get your asset if, one, the power grid goes down or there's no power?
01:35:34
Speaker 4: Right.
01:35:35
Speaker 10: That would be the first part of the question. The second part of the question ties into the name crypt. It comes from the Latin crypto, meaning a vault cavern or cavern passage and passages. It refers to an underground chamber, most often beneath a church or for burial or a place for relics. So I think that's interesting because, yeah, it is something that you can hide away your assets. But at the same time, if you're buried, how do you.
01:36:00
Speaker 7: Get them out?
01:36:01
Speaker 10: And then the third part would be who is Shytoshi Nakamoto? He first published the Bitcoin white paper in 2008. And in 2009, he basically launched the software. So in thinking, you know, he has all of at least the starting Bitcoin. So if this individual or government entity were to take out their Bitcoin's, could that in part essentially crash the entire system and take away everyone's value? And, you know, that's my three-part question, however you want to break it up, brother. I'm grateful for your work, and thank you very much.
01:36:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, right on, right on. Now, I should have wrote down the first. Give me your first one again. The last one was interesting. The first one, he said the crypto, and then he said the first. What was the first one? It was Brother Stan.
01:36:54
Speaker 1: Is Stan still with us, Kevin? I think Stan hung up.
01:37:00
Speaker 2: No, Stan had a great... Yeah, Stan hung up. They take the value out, and then he said his crypto was a thing with the name, and then the first one was.
01:37:12
Speaker 3: What happens if the electricity, if the power goes out?
01:37:14
Speaker 9: Oh, electricity goes out.
01:37:15
Speaker 2: Oh, that was fun. That was a fun one. So, again, you know, if the electric grid goes down all around the world, we're all in a world of trouble. So that part,
I always tell people, when they give me the electric one, like, Depends on how long. If it stays out for years, I think you probably are going to be dealing with a lot more problems with all your devices than just Bitcoin. But if it goes out temporarily, the fact that it's decentralized... And not Microsoft or a one company thing is part of the value of Bitcoin, that it doesn't depend on one centralized group of people. These miners, the folks who are processing this data are located all around the world and not in one centralized place. Your electric grid goes down locally. That doesn't mean Bitcoin. The grid would have to go down around the world, literally, and stay down for Bitcoin not to be the network to totally go down. And then two, like I said, your Bitcoin address and keys, you could actually write it on a piece of paper to get access to it digitally.
01:38:29
Speaker 1: Right.
01:38:30
Speaker 2: And then the part with the crypto name. Yeah, I think cryptography, the use of something that can't be counterfeited, it might have some, you know, these names. using European Greek words, you know, I think there are probably underlying meanings and dualities in it. I think fundamentally, the ability to participate in a technology that's decentralized, open source, where no one entity controls it is interesting. And so The name could have been– I would have said calling it Bitcoin and crypto, it probably would have been better to call it a name that would not have attracted so much scrutiny. They didn't have to call it Bitcoin. They could have called it Bitdata. But as soon as you call it coin, now you got people coming in from financial regulatory places that may not have come. Or they came up with the word initial coin offering when people were creating these new altcoins outside of Bitcoin. They were coming in. They call them ICOs, which rhymes with IPOs, which IPOs are regulated by the stock. So people were literally saying, why is crypto being scrutinized? Some of this was self-inflicted by just the use of terms that related so closely to securities that made it very difficult for certain regulators who probably wanted to get involved anyway to look the other way. Until today, it's oftentimes if you have the word crypto or coin or any other name in your company's name, it can be hard to get a bank account because they're skeptical and they're trying to check you out. So there is something in the name. Now, again, the Greek part of it, I'm indifferent about your name.
01:40:34
Speaker 1: Because we got Dr. Powers on deck. Before we go to him, I just saw this tweet coming from one of our listeners in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It says, please ask Sinclair. We are always 20 years behind in technology. What they tell us about, is there anything on the horizon that you know that he knows about what they are not telling us at this point?
01:40:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this artificial intelligence is huge. And I think that we need to make
sure we stop letting people tell us to be afraid. We should be aware. I think that's the A word. We need to understand the implications of this artificial intelligence and what does it replace and how can we use it to replace white supremacist ideology? How do we use all these technologies to destroy the last 500 years of oppression? But it's going to be us that does it. But the technology, I would definitely say artificial intelligence, which is just not new. But the iterations that we're going to see in the future, we need to be aware of it and be engaged and be able to make good decisions.
01:41:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another quick tweet here. I just saw one of these tweets came in. They came in earlier. His brother says, thank you. He says a practical application question regarding Bitcoin for Brother Sinclair. As with a gold bar, I can't take a gold bar into Kroger's or Safeway to buy a loaf of bread or six pack of soda. Neither can I take a bar of gold to purchase 20 gallons of gas to purchase for my truck. It's impractical. He goes on to say at first, but she seems to me that Bitcoin is just another version of the same type of impracticality. Says I can't take Bitcoin into the store to purchase a carton of eggs or a loaf of bread. He says, Brother Sinclair, help me to understand that aspect.
01:42:21
Speaker 2: No, it's the opposite. I thought he was going to make the argument for Bitcoin. Bitcoin, because it's digital, right now the manifestation that you use with the credit card is literally you're swiping information, that's data, information data, for exchange for a carton of eggs. And they use a cash register or a computer to process that. So literally a physical piece of gold would have to be secured and You have to make sure that that person can then store it once you gave it to them for some gold, I mean for some eggs. But with Bitcoin, it's digital, so the amount of storage space they would need is very different than with physical gold. So Bitcoin is more practical. You can send gold. You can see Bitcoin from the United States to Zimbabwe in seconds. To send gold would take probably a week or two at least. So they're not even comparable. When you start talking about how able you can use Bitcoin and gold, they're not in the same room. Bitcoin is just like comparing writing a letter, physically writing a letter on ink and on paper, and compare it to sending email. You can send email to multiple people in seconds. We're literally licking a stamp and putting it in the mailbox. You're asking for trouble. Right.
01:43:41
Speaker 1: You're saying this is the future. Listen, we got to let you go before we do that, though. These are some of the topics you're going to be discussing this weekend at Howard. If so, give us how we can get more information and what time it starts.
01:43:51
Speaker 2: And we're on campus. This is going to be at the Blackburn Center on Friday. We're going to be in the digital auditorium. It kicks off at 9 a.m., 9 a.m. on Friday. And then we're going to be upstairs in the ballroom. starting 9 a.m. on Saturday. That's the 25th and the 26th of September. So make sure you come out and you go to BlackBlockchainSummit.com. BlackBlockchainSummit.com. You can call us at 202-558-5255. 5143. You can call us at 202-558-5143 in order to get your information, your tickets. Students are free. You got any students at any age, come on in. We don't turn people away. We want to make sure our people understand this technology and can contribute. And we thank you so much, Carl, for always being here for us to exchange these ideas.
01:44:46
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for watching over that section for us because, you know, a lot of times we left out of the game, but we got people like you who got their eyes on what the other folks are doing and come back and report to us. So we just want to thank you for doing that, Brother Sinclair.
01:44:59
Speaker 2: Right on, right on, right on.
01:45:01
Speaker 3: All right.
01:45:01
Speaker 1: We'll see you Friday. Thank you, Brother Sinclair. Twelve minutes at the top.
01:45:05
Speaker 2: Dr.
01:45:06
Speaker 1: Tyron Powers is joining us. And Grand Rising, Dr. Powers, thanks for being so patient with us this morning.
01:45:10
Speaker 6: No problem. Not a problem at all. I always enjoy listening to every guest you have on. I'm always the student. And so it's good and interesting information for me. And you always had such experts on who've done their research, prepared, and are willing to share. So it's not about me being patient. I'm sitting in the classroom.
01:45:31
Speaker 12: So thank you.
01:45:33
Speaker 1: Well, help us out then. You know, on the federal level, it seems like Donald Trump is embracing cryptocurrency. You know, he's the crypto president, if you will. They're talking about regulations and people are saying, watch what the Trump administration is doing. Whatever they're investing in, you should be investing in because they're going to make money out of it. Where do you see that issue?
01:45:54
Speaker 6: Well, I'm certainly not an expert on cryptocurrency. That's why I like listening to your guests. But what I will say is that this administration has its own agenda. And just because you see them investing in something or participating in something doesn't always mean it's a wise decision. I'm not saying it's an unwise decision. The experts are no better than I do. But the decisions that this individual is making as president sometimes are more of self-centered, narcissistic, and are associated with his beliefs rather than his research. So I wouldn't necessarily take that as the example that would sway me one way or the other. I think that I would absolutely look at it because all information is good information. As they taught us in the FBI Academy, there's no such thing as unimportant details, but it requires some your own research. Just because they're doing it doesn't mean it's right, or it doesn't mean that
they're making the right predictions, headed in the right directions. They may be trying to guide rather than lead in these situations.
01:46:59
Speaker 1: All right, family, 14 at the top there, former FBI agent Tyrone Powers is with us this morning. We're going to discuss a lot of issues with Dr.
01:47:06
Speaker 2: Powers.
01:47:06
Speaker 9: Dr.
01:47:06
Speaker 1: Powers, let's talk about the war in Iran. Has Donald Trump got us into a war that doesn't seem like we can get out of? How do you see what's going on?
01:47:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, his administration– and I will say this over and over again. First of all, the Iranians feel like the Gulf of Homs is their nuclear weapon. If they're willing to or if they go to any kind of negotiations and negotiate a way, their willingness to develop and create nuclear weapons, then they believe that this Gulf is their nuclear weapon because they can control world economies. They can prevent actions or inactions from other nations by controlling that and also– by controlling access to oil and other areas with the attacks that they're making on Saudi Arabia and other places. So they are making some very strategic decisions to save me, maybe seen not on the face of it, good decisions, but they're making some strategic decisions, what their philosophy is. And I can say this clearly based on my history working in counterintelligence in the FBI is that we will not be left without some kind of weapon, whether it's a physical nuclear weapon, because all of those nations, despite George W. Bush and the other administration's philosophy that if we do shock and awe, these nations will bow down to us and they won't follow the example of maybe Saddam Hussein in Kuwait. and then on the borders of Saudi Arabia. But they went in the opposite direction. All of those nations, based on intelligence, said, we've got to develop something, whether it's a nuclear weapon, whether it's control over oil pipelines, whether it's control over the Gulf or the passageways in and out of the Middle East to control natural resources. We've got to have something that puts these so-called first world nations or these superpowers together. at bay, because we don't want to be pulled out of a hole in the ground like Saddam Hussein. We don't want to be chased down and dragged through the streets like Marmar Gaddafi. And their belief is that no matter how much of a relationship or a friendly relationship we develop with the West, whether it's Great Britain or France or whether it's with the United States, sooner or later, they're going to betray that. They truly believe, and they heard, listened, and studied Dwight D. Eisenhower as president saying that the United States had no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. That means that there's no benefit, long-term benefit to becoming a friend of the United States because the president have always already said in no uncertain terms that you will never be a permanent friend of ours, that we will be your friend as long as you do what I'll say and we, as long as you do what we say and cry uncle. So that's what Eisenhower's statement. This is why I I always say the study of history is so important because he laid out it for all countries in the future. And countries are operating according to this, even if we don't understand it domestically in this country. When Eisenhower and Kennedy repeated it, no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interest. So there's nothing you can do to ingratiate yourself to us unless you bow down to us. Remember that in Iraq, Iraq's total military, they had one of the third largest military apparatus in the world, certainly in the Middle East at one point. It was completely armed under the Nixon administration by Nixon and Kissinger. for a trade for oil. They traded oil. Companies was there. United States was making all kind of money under the Shah. That's why they put the Shah in power and had the revolution in 1953 where they overthrew Mossadegh and the government there.
01:50:51
Speaker 1: Hold that thought right there, Dr. Powers. We're going to take a quick break. I'll let you finish your thought when you come back. And also tell us, Donald Trump's looking for an off-ramp. Do you see an off-ramp? Do you see an end to this? How's it going to end? Because he doesn't want to lose. So I'll let you answer those questions when we get back. Family, you want to join us and speak to our guest, Dr. Tyrone Powers. He's the author of the best-selling book, Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Reach out to us at 800-450-7876, and we'll take your phone calls next. And Grand Rising family, thanks for waking up with us on this Monday morning and starting your work week with us. Our guest is Brother Sinclair Skinner. Brother Sinclair is a world traveler, is also an engineer, is hosting a Black Block Change Summit taking place at Howard University. At the end of this week, we're going to talk about that. But let's get into this whole crypto issue with Brother Sinclair, because some people say that crypto is a Ponzi scheme. How do you see it?
01:51:52
Speaker 2: I think it's a great point. What we've been blessed, and this is, again, being based, having this event at Howard University that one of the most amazing universities on the planet. I think about when people bring up Ivy League schools and the type of people that they've produced, and you look at HBCUs and the type of people that they've produced, it's not even close. Again, the amazing brains that have come out of HBCUs, and you think about the types of folks that have come out of these Ivy League schools that created some of the worst problematic issues in the world, I mean, we stand head and shoulders. So our purpose in doing the work we do is to make sure we don't have scams.
01:52:37
Speaker 1: I mentioned this book before we left for the break, Eyes to My Soul. rise or decline of a black FBI
agent. Before we left, though, Dr. Townsend, I want you to finish your thought, but tell us about your thoughts, where do you think this situation with Iran is going? Because now it's not just affecting the United States, it's global now. People are feeling it, the effects of the shutdowns of the oil that's across the entire globe. So people are feeling it. And a lot of these world leaders are coming to New York City this week. They're going to be meeting at the General Assembly of the United Nations. And another question, do you think anything's going to be worked out there? But finish your thought and tell me, how do you think this will end or will it end with World War III?
01:53:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, two things. These nations, and I just think it's so important because it directly relates to us on a micro level. These nations and leadership to these particular nations are led by, in most cases, very intelligent people. And they study history and they've looked at what the U.S. did in Afghanistan, what happened in Vietnam. All of those things are not thrown in the trash pile of history. They look at these particular events that are occurring. There's always been, on behalf of the West, not so much the intelligence agencies, but on behalf of the West, a kind of arrogance that we can bomb people into submission. We tried that in Vietnam. You know how that ended. We tried that in Korea. We ended up right back at the 38th parallel between North Korea and South Korea, because these are the nations' study history. They're not just acting off emotion of what they're seeing today. They watch what happened in Iraq when, again, Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hole in the ground, and Libya, when that country had essentially been destroyed, essentially under the administration of Barack Obama, and slavery has been reinstituted in Libya now. They watch all of this history and say there's no benefit Even if we suffer mass destruction, even if we are bombed day in, day in, and night, there's no benefit to settling this unless we get something out of it. And if we stay the course, then it is better that we stay the course and suffer whatever casualties, as they did in Vietnam, than to submit to this because we will never come out on the right side of this. So I do think there will be an offering. I think these are the nation's who are looking at this will say, this administration probably will never admit to it, that these people are never going to give up. We have examples of that throughout history. So we're going to have to have some kind of off ramp. We're going to have to, in a sideways deal, in a deal that's not announced, and a deal that is announced in the Middle East. When that fell apart after the overthrow of the Shah, then they said, well, now we only have one advocate or one partner that can help us, even though we don't necessarily love them, and that's Israel. So their philosophy has been that no matter what wrong Israel will do, because
Israel had done wrong, Jonathan Pollitt was in prison here now for spying on.
01:55:39
Speaker 2: The United States.
01:55:40
Speaker 6: Because the Israelis believed truly that the United States didn't come to their aid during World War II, that there were concentration camps, and you didn't come to the aid until Germany declared war on the United States. until Germany declared war on the United States. They believe that the United States is a partner, but not an ally and not a friend. The United States feels the same way. So the Israelis spy on everybody. They spy on the British. They spy on the United States. Again, they spy on our military. They take billions of dollars from the United States and still spy on the United States. But the philosophy, the cause-benefit analysis made by previous administrations in this particular country is, Despite them spying on the United States, they are our last best chance in the Middle East because we've lost everybody. We've gained Saudi Arabia to an extent. But Saudi Arabia really didn't have the apparatus or the military that Iran or the Israelis had. So they are our last best chance. And despite the cost of being a partner with Israel, the benefits outweigh the cost because of the resources we need in that particular area.
01:56:49
Speaker 1: All right, 27 away from the top of the hour. This question, the Israelis, do they have undue influence at the Pentagon and at the FBI headquarters? Anything you know about that? I keep hearing these reports. I'm not sure if it's Internet chatter, if there is some truth to what's going on.
01:57:07
Speaker 6: Well, as long as the United States of America feel that they're only starched strategic partner, not ally, again, partner in the Middle East is Israel. Israel will have influence in every agency in the United States because it's a need, not a want. I don't necessarily, there have been presidents in the past, and if you listen to their private conversations, go to the archives and pull their tapes, who hated Israel. President Nixon used to talk about them damn Jews all the time as president, even though Kissinger was his right-hand man. And Kissinger would say to him, Mr. President, but I'm Jewish. He said, but I'm not.
01:57:46
Speaker 4: Talking about you.
01:57:47
Speaker 6: I'm talking about those damn Jews. So it's not been an emotional attachment or relationship. It has been a strategic relationship. And as long as they conclude this administration, The agencies, the military conclude that there is more of a benefit to a strategic relationship with Israel than there is a cost to it then they will maintain it even if they do it– even if they're not fully– they're not fully into it. They don't believe in it fully. They'll say this is a– so these decisions are made without emotion but very strategically. And they could be wrong. It doesn't mean that because you make a strategic decision, your strategy is right. But they do it in a very cold manner and way. When I was in the FBI, I'll end it with this. And I was in the academy in those closed and sealed rooms learning counterintelligence and counterterrorism. My instructor in that class said that in the FBI, in the Central Intelligence Agency, we have to be able to kiss the a baby of one of our allies in the morning and order the assassination of that person and their child by the end of the day. And his philosophy was that we had to have the ability to take the moral high ground and at the same time be completely cold and callous. And we had the ability to do it within 24 hours. There was strategic relationships. There was no emotional bond. There was no emotional... How does this benefit the empire of the United States? And that's the only decision.
01:59:30
Speaker 8: Well, that's a question.
01:59:30
Speaker 1: That begs a question, though, Doc. So why Israel? Why Saudi Arabia? Why be another country? Why are we so, you know, entwined with Israel?
01:59:39
Speaker 3: What is it?
01:59:40
Speaker 1: What's in it for us?
01:59:42
Speaker 6: Two things. We've always been entwined with the nation that we thought had... Greatest ability to suppress everyone else in that area. We have military bases in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia doesn't have a strong military of its own but for its relationship with the United States. They have military bases there. The Iranians had a strong, and like I said before, they had the third largest army in the world at one time, thanks to Kissinger and Nixon. So there was a benefit with their military might, because this is a nation that always believed in brute force. It's a nation made by war. I mean, let's face it, the Revolutionary War, this nation came into existence not by negotiation, but by the Revolutionary War with the British. This is a nation made by war. And as a result, it has a philosophy that war and violence is how you get what you want. They built civilizations on the ruins of other nations. I mean, that's how we build on destruction before construction. So that's the philosophy of this nation. And you can't get away from it because, again, this is a nation created by war. It's a nation created by what they did to the Native Americans in the Trail of Tears or the slave trade. So everything that this nation came into creation with and a philosophy that haven't left this nation is violence and war. And so they believe that At one time, Iran had the third largest military in that region, again, thanks to Kissinger and Nixon. And now Israel have nuclear capability. Think about this. Israel is one of the only nations that haven't signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We know that they have at least 80 nuclear weapons, the ability to destroy other nations, and we know they have the capability of a nuclear weapon to reach the United States. We don't even mention that. The only person that ever mentioned that who got in trouble and barred from that nation was Jimmy Carter as president of the United
States. Because every other politician, whether it's the Congressional Black Caucus or any other nation, will not mention the fact, one, that Israel haven't signed on to the new monopoly.
02:01:49
Speaker 1: And hold that thought right there, Dr.
02:01:51
Speaker 3: Powers.
02:01:51
Speaker 1: I'd like to expand on that when we get back. We've got to check the news traffic and weather in our different cities. 22 minutes away from the top there. Dr. Tyrone Powers, family, want to join this conversation? Reach out to us at 800-450-7876. And we'll take your phone calls after we check the news. That's next. And Grand Rising family, thanks for starting your week with us. It's 16 minutes away from the top there. I guess his former FBI agent, Dr. Tyrone Powers, you know him from his best-selling workbook.
02:02:20
Speaker 2: Workbook?
02:02:20
Speaker 1: It's just a book, by the way. It's not a workbook. Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Before we go back to him, let me just remind you, we've got to offer our condolences, actually, to the family and the entire nation of Islam on the passing of Minister Farrakhan's eldest daughter. That would be Sister Betty Jean Farrakhan. Betty Jean Farrakhan was 72. So our condolences again to Minister Farrakhan's immediate family and also the entire nation of Islam. Coming up later this week, you're going to hear from Professor James Small. Also, metaphysician and master herbalist Dr. B will join us. And former Tuskegee mayor Johnny Ford will be here as well. So if you are in Baltimore, keep that radio locked real tight on 1010 WLB. If we're in the DMV, the Washington metropolitan area, we're on 1450 WL. Dr. Powers, I'm going to let you finish your thought. We've got some folks who've got questions for you.
02:03:08
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was just saying that Israel is one of the few nations that have no pressure. We haven't put any pressure on them to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. They haven't declared they have nuclear weapons. None of them, no one asked where their nuclear weapons are stored, where the facilities, is it in Israel? We had these missiles coming into Israel or bombs from Hamas and from southern Lebanon. No one was concerned about them hitting nuclear weapon plants. We don't even have the discussion. In fact, this is fact, not fiction. Jimmy Carter discussed it, and they even had pushback on him as president because the philosophy had been that it was against U.S. policy to even discuss the fact that Israel had at least at that time during the Card administration, 80 nuclear weapons with nuclear warheads, and that no other nation in the Middle East was allowed to have them but Israel, the nation that had not signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. You know, we're trying to negotiate with Iran now a nuclear nonproliferation, whether they will get nuclear weapons or whether— we haven't even had those discussions, not the Congressional Black Caucus, not under President Barack Obama or President Biden or President Clinton or President Reagan or President Bush. The only person that even had the courage to even bring it up was President Carter. Remember, Carter wrote four or three books on the Middle East. He wrote Palestine, Apartheid Partnership and Not Apartheid. He wrote the book on Abraham. He wrote books about Israel. And he said when he visited Israel— There was no religion going on. He said the only person, the only public official who went to the religious places was him, and the leadership in Israel wouldn't go. Remember, that's why they were so hard on Carter, because in his books, if you want to go back and read them for yourself, Palestine, not a peace, not apartheid, which was the title of his book where he talks about that history. The Blood of Abraham, written by Jimmy Carter, where he talked about the oppression and the things in Israel. As a president, he wrote about this. And I think he was the only one that was mentioning. And he got pushback and said, well, you can't mention that because it's against the law to even mention the fact that Israel had nuclear weapons. Because if so, we've got people going to start asking where they're kept, who's inspecting them, and why have they not signed on a nuclear nonproliferation treaty? Well, they haven't done that because the United States have always felt that it was a benefit to have a nation in the Middle East that had nuclear weapons that were taken care of by the United States of America, because that allowed us not only to threaten other nations if they did not get in line, but to also have that one extension. We considered Israel an extension, not an ally, but an extension of U.S. military might.
02:06:09
Speaker 1: But I'm still puzzled by the question. Why Israel? Why don't we have this kind of relationship with any other country on the planet? Why just Israel?
02:06:16
Speaker 3: What is it?
02:06:17
Speaker 6: It goes all the way back to the Balfour Declaration. The British agree with the Israelis that they should have a place in the Middle East. The Israelis agree, and they've always voted. Remember, they're the ones who were involved in That's a whole other story, but the apartheid movement in South Africa, there's always been a philosophy that we needed a satellite nation. And the only nation that was willing to be a complete satellite nation, Saudi Arabia have allowed military bases. The only nation that was willing to be a complete satellite nation was Israel or Iran under the Shah of Iran. When he was in power or when the U.S. helped participate in the overthrow of the Mosul government in 1953 and put the Shah in power until you had the Iranian Revolution, which led to the Iran of the day. They were the only nation willing to be an extension. of the United States, and that deal was cut, and we are indebted to them. We feel that this nation feels that they need them there, and they're a nation that have nuclear weapons. And no
other nation now had a desire for one point to have nuclear weapons until the Iranians said, we've got to have nuclear weapons to deter the Western threat, not just a threat from the United States. but the Western threat, which is why they went about the business. But think about it. Saudi Arabia, with all its money, all its power, and all its might, haven't pursued nuclear weapons because of a deal they've cut with the United States. There was no nuclear weapons in Iraq, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein was accused of having nuclear weapons. All the history and all the research indicates the only Middle Eastern extension of the United States that had nuclear weapons and nuclear power to, one, at one time, to deter any attack from the communist regime in Russia or to deter any hoarding of the resources of the Middle East was Israel. Saudi Arabia at one point told the United States They wasn't going to sell the United States oil. The United States said at the time, you have nothing to defend yourself from us. Either you will sell it to us or we'll take it. There's a wonderful documentary called The House of Saud that explains how a president of the United States told the king of Saudi Arabia, you will always sell us oil or we will take it. So you might as well become a partner with us than a partner against us. And the examples have been that when you're not a partner with the United States, what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iran after the Iranian revolution, and what happened in other nations in the Middle East.
02:08:58
Speaker 1: And bring it to present day now, the Saudis are under attack from the Houthis, and they reached out to Donald Trump for help and said, we gave you all this money, gave you your son-in-law money, billions of dollars, and now we need your help. And Donald Trump passed him on to Marco Rubio, who's been missing in action, by the way. All this thing is going on. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And the Saudis, as we speak, are very, very upset because they thought the United States was going to help them out. Now even their capital is under attack. Explain what's going on there for us.
02:09:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, they can be upset all they want to. But the U.S. have a large military presence and large military bases there.
02:09:37
Speaker 7: U.S.
02:09:37
Speaker 6: Have said to them that when you were threatened by Iraq, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and there were some logical reasons for that. Kuwait was slant drilling. In other words, they were drilling in Kuwait, but drilling under the ground into Iraq and stealing oil. That's a whole story. another story in lecture, but when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, they continued towards the border of Saudi Arabia. The United States said, we're the only thing that kept you from an invasion of Iraq into your country. So you can be upset, but we have protected you in the past. And the reality of the matter is the U.S. will send, and President Trump has said this in the past, but you've got to listen to him because he's not very clear on it. He said in the past that we will give weapons, the same thing that's happened with Russia and Ukraine. We'll give weapons to another country. This is what happened in Afghanistan, too, from a historical standpoint. We'll give weapons to another country. They will give the weapons to you. That way, we will give the intelligence to another country. They will give the intelligence to you. That way, they can never say that that came from the United States, because although we are a supporter of you and we understand the problems that you're going through now, we can't be directly involved. Think about why this is so important, and then we can bring it home into how they've divided our particular communities and our organizations. During the Iran-Iraq war, because there was a war between Iran and Iraq, the Israelis supplied weapons to both sides so that they could keep fighting, because as long as Iran and Iraq was fighting, they couldn't fight Israel. Think about this. The Israeli military, weapons supplied to Israel, were given to Iran and Iraq and said, go kill each other. We're going to support both of you, and we're going to make sure neither one of you run out of ammunition. But that is the same for— I' m telling you, this is why I think the study of history is so important. I think the student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad Malcolm X said, of all of our— Of all of our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research, not for the beauty of history, not so we can quote how smart we are, we know when Martin Luther King was born, when he died, who he dated, but for the lessons of history. That's why Malcolm X can say... Out of all of our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research, because the more things change, the more they stay the same. If you're a biblical leader, there's nothing new under the sun. But if you study that, you can counter whatever's happening now. When I worked counterterrorism in the FBI, again, they said superficial understanding could only lead to superficial solution. You will never counter that which you do not fully understand. When you go to a doctor— to get a diagnosis for any sickness you have, one of the first questions they ask you is the origin of it. What is the history of it? When did you first start feeling this way? When did we first start aching? When did the pain first start coming on? Because if I can understand the origin, the origin is not irrelevant. History is not irrelevant. Then I can come up with a solution or maybe come up with a solution for what you're dealing with in the present or at least see the How far the problem is along, because that will allow me to diagnose and to treat it appropriately. When they teach our children that history isn't important or when we allow school systems, we have a 46 percent chronic disease. absenteeism rate in Baltimore City, which means that 50% of the students hardly
go to school. Forget about quality education and curriculum. We have a 46% chronic absenteeism rate. They're not even showing up at school. So how do we prepare for the future when we can't educate them to the past or the present or cryptocurrency or anything else because they're not even in the classroom? That's an issue we have to address because it's not just an impact for today. It's an impact into the future. You and I can discuss all we know because of our age and history in this country. But unless we transform and transfer that knowledge to our children and our children's children, if you're a Christian, biblically, and you will tell your children and your children's children, because unless you do that, you will never turn this Titanic of oppression around for future generations.
02:14:01
Speaker 1: Well said. Listen, we've got to step aside for a few moments. We've got to check the traffic and weather in our different cities. Family just joined us. We've got a bunch of folks who want to talk to Dr. Tyrone Powers. The number to call is 800-450-7876. Let me just say this. For those of you who are just hearing him for the first time, you can check out his book. It's a bestselling book, Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Sort of like the spook who sat at the door. What are your thoughts, family? Again, the number to call to speak to us and speak to Dr. Powers, 800-450-7876. And we'll take your phone calls after we check the traffic and weather. That's next. And Grand Rising family, I guess there's a former FBI agent.
02:14:49
Speaker 2: Dr.
02:14:49
Speaker 1: Tyrone Powers. And I mentioned his book, Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Got a bunch of folks got questions because it's covering a lot of range internationally. We've got some local things we want to talk to Dr. Powers as well. But Gene's reaching out to us from Pikesville in Maryland. He's on line one. Grand Rising Gene, your question for Dr. Powers.
02:15:06
Speaker 12: Yeah, Grand Rising, Dr.
02:15:07
Speaker 4: Powers.
02:15:08
Speaker 12: Just for the history lovers out there, Winston Churchill, look, Winston Churchill up in Lawns of Arabia. They love intelligence and You know, sculpted dodgery.
02:15:21
Speaker 9: Dr.
02:15:22
Speaker 12: Powers, thank you very much for catching on the Abraham Accords and tying Jimmy Carter together. I just had a conversation with Smitty, who has a show on WLB, the other day about that. And you were very timely in mentioning that. You know, mentioning Jimmy Carter and the beginning of the Abraham Accords where Israel was able to get– wasn't he able– Israel was able to get the nuclear bomb? And then that was the precursor to Saudi Arabia, and that put the stamp on the area and who can control it. And this is the initiative, again, of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, this is his policy in the Middle East.
02:16:09
Speaker 2: Right.
02:16:10
Speaker 1: And Gene, do us a favor. I hate to rush, but can you put in a question for him? Because we've got a bunch of folks who have questions for him.
02:16:14
Speaker 12: That is a question called the Abraham Accord. Isn't that the policy that's going on in Israel right now? And aren't the Saudi Arabians and the Israelis uniting and they're dividing the Sunni and the Shia to do so and control the oil? And could you talk about.
02:16:34
Speaker 2: Please, India?
02:16:37
Speaker 6: And I won't address all of that now only because we have the number of calls, but that's a vital area. And the Abraham Accords are so important. I wish people really studied that. And I also wish they'd study, again, Jimmy Carter's books. You don't have to like Jimmy Carter as a president to see how he analyzed and dealt with this particular area of the world and the blood of Abraham, his book, and Palestine, peace, not apartheid. And remember, in the title of his book, he didn't say Gaza. He didn't say the occupied territories. The title of President Jimmy Carter's book is Palestine, peace, not apartheid, because he believed, even as president of the United States, whatever president have said this, even Barack Obama have said that you have a system of apartheid In Palestine. I mean, a president of the United States said this and analyzed it and wrote it in his book. So I think that's that's that's important. And you're right about the Abraham Accords. But go ahead. All right.
02:17:34
Speaker 2: Thanks.
02:17:35
Speaker 10: Thank you very much.
02:17:36
Speaker 12: Again, you know, you bringing it up. And I think that you by you just bringing it up is now going to raise the consciousness of our people in understanding things like BRIC and India.
02:17:48
Speaker 4: India is the only country that had more assassinations than the United States.
02:17:52
Speaker 12: If you go back and look at their history and the creation of Afghans.
02:17:56
Speaker 1: And, Gene, thank you, because we're trying to reach a lot of folks. So let me just tell you, just please be mindful that we've got other people who've got questions. We want to hear all your questions. Let's keep moving, though. Five at the top of the aisle. Brother Sekou's checking in from Baltimore. He's online, too. Brother Sekou, your question for Dr.
02:18:12
Speaker 2: Powers. Y'all, let me tell you.
02:18:19
Speaker 11: It's understood we can have different opinions, but not different facts. Do you agree?
02:18:27
Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
02:18:31
Speaker 11: And do you agree that we can have different interpretations of the same facts.
02:18:39
Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
02:18:41
Speaker 7: Okay.
02:18:42
Speaker 11: I'm going to mail you some information. I'm going to email it to you. Give me your email address because I want your interpretation of the facts that I'm going to present to you in this email communication I'm going to send you.
02:18:56
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
02:18:57
Speaker 6: More than willing to do that. It's powers, P-O-W-E-R-S, at... Wait a minute, wait a
minute, wait a minute.
02:19:04
Speaker 7: I'm recuperating from West Nile virus. I like smoke. Powers, what else?
02:19:10
Speaker 6: At T, as in Tyrone. Powers at T Powers. Consulting.com.
02:19:19
Speaker 7: Powers at T Powers.
02:19:21
Speaker 6: Consulting.com.
02:19:24
Speaker 7: Consulting.com.
02:19:29
Speaker 6: Yes, sir.
02:19:31
Speaker 7: Let me ask you this while I've got you on the line.
02:19:35
Speaker 11: Who are the people, call themselves Palestinians, in that area that is in conflict right now? Because my understanding, according to the Chancellor Williams, destruction of black civilization, they are not indigenous people in that area.
02:19:53
Speaker 7: They are Arabs.
02:19:55
Speaker 11: And the Arabs and Europeans were fighting for domination and control for 1,400 years, according to European scholars and historians.
02:20:04
Speaker 2: So.
02:20:06
Speaker 11: ethnically and racially, who are those people claiming to be Palestinians? Because my understanding is they are not Africans, they are not indigenous to that area.
02:20:15
Speaker 2: Thank you.
02:20:16
Speaker 6: They very well may not be indigenous to that particular area, but as we address the issues today, and I'm not disputing or pushing back on anything you said, I'm just saying that prior to the creation of Israel in 1948, after World War II, based on the decision of Great Britain.
02:20:35
Speaker 2: The Balfour.
02:20:37
Speaker 6: The Balfour.
02:20:38
Speaker 2: The Balfour Declaration.
02:20:50
Speaker 6: The Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, where they divided up and put borders in the Middle East. I think a previous caller talking about Lance of Arabia. There's a wonderful book called Lance in Arabia that also explains this particular history. But the point of the matter is, is that as we look at it today, when Israel was created, the area was called Palestine. And for whatever reason, in all of our conversations, even President Karloff called it Palestine. He didn't talk about guys in the Occupied Territories. He said peace, this book is called Palestine, peace, not apartheid. And as it is today, in the discussion that we're talking about today in terms of the killing of all these children, this genocide that is taking place, it's taking place in Palestine.
02:21:38
Speaker 2: All right.
02:21:38
Speaker 1: Thank you for your call. Eight at the top there. Christian's calling us from Malibu. He's on line three. Grand Rising, Christian, your question for Dr. Powers.
02:21:46
Speaker 2: Grand Rising, I've got two questions for him.
02:21:49
Speaker 5: You remember in 1967 when Israel bombed the U.S.
02:21:53
Speaker 2: Liberty, which we.
02:21:55
Speaker 5: Had at 10 o'clock in the morning on a clear day, no clouds everywhere, and they killed 34 American servicemen and moved 170 people. And they believe that the Liberty was a spy ship as the United States was listening in to the Israel and Egypt war.
02:22:13
Speaker 2: And they paid, I think, $ 3. 2 million back in that time. But nobody went to jail. Nobody was hung. Nobody was tried. What do you think about that? What's wrong with that problem?
02:22:25
Speaker 6: That's not a problem. That's a fact. You're absolutely right. The Israelis bombed the U.S. Liberty, a U.S. ship, like I said, and I think Carl brought it up earlier about the people who are sitting in prison now who are spying on the United States for Israel. Because of the spies from Israel on the United States, the information that they gathered— The Israelis knew where every single strategic submarine was of the U.S. military fleet. And at the cost of billions of dollars, we had to change all that around because you know where submarines are. The fact that we build these super silent submarines, the Russian launched one about 10 years ago that we still can't locate. It's a nuclear submarine that is so silent that you can't find it with sonar under the water and so on and so forth. But because that information is was given to the Israelis by an Israeli spy in the United States. The United States had to spend billions to move to change the location of all the submarines and the naval patterns and so on and so forth.
02:23:24
Speaker 12: And you're right.
02:23:25
Speaker 6: We spy on Israel. Israel spies on the United States. The United States spies on Great Britain. Great Britain spies on the United States. We're under this concept that there is such a real thing as alliance. We don't have alliance. We have partnerships. And I will still go back to Eisenhower, where he, first of all, he helped create the problem because he was participating in the killing of Patrice Lumuma. But beyond that, at the end, he began to have this new insight and inspiration where he talked about the military-industrial complex. He's the first one to mention that. He said, be careful of the military-industrial complex. And he should know wars are created to finance and to profit from, which is what he said. And then he said the United States will never have any permanent friends. Only permanent interest. And that was a message to every other nation who took it to heart, who understood it intellectually and not emotionally, that they better have their own thing one way or the other.
02:24:23
Speaker 3: All right.
02:24:23
Speaker 1: Thank you. Calling from Malibu, that would be Christian.
02:24:26
Speaker 5: 800-450-7876.
02:24:27
Speaker 1: Ray Davis is checking in from Baltimore. It's on line four. Grand Rising Ray, your question for Dr. Powers.
02:24:36
Speaker 8: Good morning, great brothers. First of all, brilliant historical analysis from Dr. Powers is also, I mean, just brilliant, succinct, comprehensive, and global. I'm sure that Dr. Powers is aware of this, and I think, Carl, you may be too. When Netanyahu came to New York City 60 years ago, he slept here. At the Kushner household, indeed, and this is New York Times, by the way, anyone can Google it. Indeed, he slept in Jared
Kushner's bed. Jared Kushner had to sleep in another room that particular night. And I'm just pointing out strange bedfellows and how long these Jewish men, American relationships go back. Carl, you had asked repeatedly about what is this connection to America and Israel, and I think Dr. Powers handled that very well. But there's another thing. They have an ideological bond, both being settler colonial states, both of them that practice racial apartheid, to the point of global murder. And I wanted to switch to another thing Dr. Powers hit out the park. And even though he didn't say a petrodollar yet, the Saudis, we protect them because we made an agreement as Dr. Powers was talking about. And Dr. Powers, you mentioned Nixon and Kissinger. The petrodollar replaced the gold standard. Carl, I still don't think Well, no, I've worked at a college for the past 10 years, and I can tell you the majority of college students and older people.
02:26:35
Speaker 1: We lost Ray? Ray, if your call dropped, just call us back, and we'll get to you and let you finish your question for Dr. Powers. 13 at the top there. Carl's in West Palm Beach, Florida. Carl, it's on line five. Grand Rising Carl, your question for Dr. Powers.
02:26:51
Speaker 13: Grand Rising Card and Grand Rising, Dr.
02:26:53
Speaker 2: Powell.
02:26:54
Speaker 13: My question is, Dr. Powell, in this day, we understand inside of the black community that we need some new training. You know, we have a.
02:27:01
Speaker 9: Lot of hanging. Absolutely.
02:27:02
Speaker 13: We have a lot of missing women. And with people understanding now that we need people that have been developed, and I believe that you're the development that we need for our security, that everybody professed that we need to establish in our community. And my question was, had you been on a tour before? with any of our organizations, any of our politicians, like you should have spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus. Do they value you to the degree that we, those of us who understand your purpose, are they reaching out to you? Do you have a tool at the college level where the students that the gentleman was just talking about, where they could be appreciative of the quest that God placed you on and how you come back now to share that with us? Are they doing that?
02:27:50
Speaker 6: Two things, and that's a very important question. I've worked with individuals, and I've said to every black politician that They don't put you in office unless they can put you out. And you need to have somebody on your staff, whether it's me or someone else, that can protect you from this onslaught. I worked with a black politician, I won't mention him here, who came to me, who was voting on certain legislation. And he said to me, he said, Doc, I'm fully compromised. He said, if I do anything other than what they asked me to do, then I'm going to end up in prison because of some mistakes I made and some decisions I made. He said, how can I help you and not end up in prison? So what I'm saying to you is that Black politicians, the Congressional Black Caucus, the other organizations, whether it's the NAACP, the SEL, so history indicates clearly that they need a security apparatus and they need an intelligence apparatus. Otherwise, we'll keep making the same mistakes. We are so busy And this is a quick aside. We are so busy mitigating. We want to dramatically reduce crime and violence in the black community. That's so important. But at the same time, we just don't want people not to commit crime. We want people to get better. We want to increase the life chances. We want to create engineers and lawyers and doctors and people who can come on. I call all the guests you have on. from cryptocurrency to Dr. Ray Rembusch. So we are so busy trying to mitigate violence against ourselves that we are not truly in the business of creating greatness. They're not mutually exclusive, but most of the times when you hear our politicians talk, they say, well, we're going to end violence. We're going to put these juveniles in a certain program. But we don't talk about making them better, increasing their life chances. So that's so important. I've tried to do that. I've met with some politicians. I've worked with some politicians. I've said to the Congressional Black Caucus and every one of your conferences or the sororities and the fraternities, there need to be some closed sessions, not open to even all of your membership, some closed sessions where we discuss the strategy that will take us forward well into the future because there's some things that are happening to you, even in your positions of authority. There are people being put around you that are mitigating and diluting your power, and you don't even see it coming, but you have people with expertise that can help you with that. They don't embrace that fully, I have to say. NOBLE, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, I spoke at their conference, and I said to them, we need some closed sessions to talk about some concrete strategies. What we're talking about is philosophy, theories, and history, but we're not applying it to make it into concrete strategies. So not enough. I've met with students. I've talked with students. I've met with certain people in certain organizations privately. I've met with aldermen in Chicago who have gotten in trouble and said, Doc, this is how they came. You tried to explain this to me before. Is there anything you can do with me now? And I'm saying that has to be a part of our political development.
02:30:58
Speaker 2: Otherwise.
02:31:01
Speaker 6: Otherwise, even the people in position of power will be compromised. As I said to you before, the Congressional Black Caucus have never asked Israel, do they have nuclear weapons?
02:31:11
Speaker 4: Why have you.
02:31:11
Speaker 6: Signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty? What did you do in Rwanda when they had the Rwanda genocide? These are
questions that intelligent organizations... intelligent people, despite everything else you're doing. I'm not saying you shouldn't be doing all the other things you're doing, protesting, protesting the killing of blacks by police officers, but we can operate almost as a nation within a nation rather than a colony within a nation and have all these.
02:31:38
Speaker 8: Other things in place.
02:31:38
Speaker 2: And hold on a thought right there.
02:31:40
Speaker 1: Doc, we're going to step aside for a few moments. 18 at the top. Then we come back, you said you met with local people. I want to find out if you spoke with Tyrone White in D.C. 800-450-7876 to speak to Dr.
02:31:51
Speaker 2: Powers.
02:31:51
Speaker 1: We'll take your phone calls next. And Grand Rising family, thanks for rolling with us on this Monday morning. Thanks for starting your week with us and our guest, former FBI agent Dr. Tyrone Powers.
02:32:08
Speaker 2: Dr.
02:32:09
Speaker 1: Powers is like the spook who sat at the door. His best-selling book is called Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Before we left, you were speaking about some local events. I've got to ask you this. Washington, D.C., a city council member, Ward 8 member, Trayvon Wright, accused of accepting a bribe, and they've got him on tape. They said the Fed set him up. Did he ever reach out to you to help him? You know, because you know how they do these things. Did he ever call you up?
02:32:37
Speaker 6: A number of people reached out on his behalf, and then I reached out to him. He reached out to me, and we missed each other. Then I left a message for him, I think, last, and he was going to call me back, and I haven't heard back from him. But those are interesting cases, I can tell you. And I would say this in general call to every black politician. They don't put you in office unless they can take you out, and they're always looking for something. They may be your friend today. I can never, I will never forget that Kweisi and Fumey, when he first took office, a senator at the time or a congressman at the time said that your staff need to be trained. So I'm going to put my staff in your office, send your staff over here, and I will train them. And later on, when Kweisi decided to run for the Senate, The politician told him it was a very milked-down, diluted campaign because the politician told him, I know everything about you because my staff was in your office. At the time, he thought it was a wonderful gesture for that politician, helping him to understand Congress, how it would work, how to learn Congress. He wasn't an Adam Clayton Powell or a Perrin J. Mitchell politician. He thought it was a good thing, but in reality, they were gathering intelligence just in case at some point he didn't do what they needed him to do or wanted him to do, they could bring this back up. And we just have to understand those techniques and tactics. We have to understand them, whether we're at city council, whether we're at mayor, whether we're at congressperson, wherever we are, we've got to understand that and bring people in to sit down with us And not publicly in private sessions in our organizations to say this is how they're going to come prepare for it now. And if it doesn't happen, it's always better to be prepared and have nothing happen than to be unprepared and have something happen. But if they ever come, this is how it's going to happen so that we can prepare our politicians so they can be powerful, not only in words and in rhetoric, but in deeds and change the conditions in our community.
02:34:45
Speaker 1: Looking at what we call a setup, that's what Trayvon White's folks are saying. They're going back to court this morning as we speak. They're in the courtroom in D.C. His attorneys are asking him to dismiss the case or parts of the case. The setup, using his— and there's some debate whether the dude was his brother-in-law or not. Is that typical? They get someone who's close to you? Is that the feds, how they roll?
02:35:07
Speaker 6: Nine times out of ten, and we've cited all the way back to— the 1960s with Fred Hampton Sr. Nine times out of ten, it's someone who they are for a deal who's close to you, who is in your organization. Because the people who are not close to you, you're not going to let them get close to you. I think there's You know, there's the Machiavelli statement, you know, of keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. But the problem is today you don't know who your friends or enemies are. So nine times out of ten, the people who have access to information are the people they're going to use against you. And technically, legally, in some cases— If they volunteer that information, there's nothing they can do about that. That's what I'm saying. That's a whole lesson, a lecture in and of itself. But nine times out of ten, I know when I was working and helping all the men in Chicago who ended up ultimately going to prison, but after the fact, he was meeting with people at a location. They were giving him money. And the sad part about this case, and I'll be very brief with it, is that it involved the FBI had this case where they were trying that you have to pay money to bring construction equipment through the streets of Chicago because it does so much damage in Chicago. And a fake construction company, which were really undercover FBI agents, went to this particular alderman and said, if we give you so much money, can you get rid of this for us? We're doing work at Jeremiah Wright's church. The alderman knew Jeremiah Wright. All he had to do was call him and say there's work being done there because there was no work being done there. The FBI had put a few construction trucks in his lot to make it look like that. The alderman met with these undercover agents at an apartment at a place they designated. They handed him money. The cameras were on. They caught him accepting the money, and they ended up
charging him, and he ended up going to federal prison. And what I said to him, I said, why were you meeting with people who you don't know? Even if you want to see or feel them out to see if they're legitimate, send somebody on your staff. And if anybody's videotaped on camera, it's not you. It's somebody on your staff talking to them. Why would you meet with them? And he said to me, he's no longer in office. He's done his prison time. He's back out. I still talk to him, post that. He said to me that I'd never learned that. I was so caught up in the position and the power I had been in office for so long that nobody ever sat me down from a security standpoint. He said I was a good politician to the community, but nobody sat me down from the security standpoint, which doesn't mean that he was right for doing it anyway. But he had a great relationship with Jeremiah Wright. Why didn't you just pick up the call and say, Jeremiah Wright, is construction being done at your church? What are those trucks doing in your lot? But we were so past that in our emotionalism and the power of the position that we can't do the simple things. And after the fact, he put me in touch with some other aldermen who I said, this is how it's going to happen if it ever happens.
02:38:08
Speaker 1: Well, let me just say this, family, you know, people who are elected officials just pass on this conversation, get a copy of this podcast and share with them and let them know. Let them know what Dr. Powers just said, because I know folks who are in office or running for office, they see the other folks do it, the white boys do it, and they get away with it, and they try, and then they get slammed. So that's another issue, too, Dr.
02:38:28
Speaker 2: Powers.
02:38:29
Speaker 6: And it's not a— you can't—your defense can't be that others have done this. It's like when I was a— Maryland State Trooper, and I would pull people over for speed, and they'd say, you pulled me over, but my dad was going faster than me. I said, but that doesn't mean you weren't speeding. It just means that you're the one I pulled over. I agree that he may be speeding too, but that doesn't exonerate you from you. So even if your defense can't be, they do it and get away with it, so I'm going to do it and get away with it. You're not them. Our history in America says you're not them. And while we are working to get equal justice under the law, let's not fall under the illusion that there is equal justice under the law. Because they did it and got away with it. Because of what any politician did that was white and weren't your color got away with it. Doesn't mean you can. You've got to put things in place. Even as you advocate and fight for the community, you've got to have people close to you looking out for you. And Mayor Daley, the first Mayor Daley, the senior Mayor Daley, had people in his administration, and I'll never forget that they were family members, and their only job was security, and they'd look out for him. And one time, a person in the media asked him and said, Mayor Daley, you got your family working for you? You know what Mayor Daley said? He was disarrogant in his response. He was saying, I believe in nepotism. If you're going to be close to me, if you're going to hear my intimate conversations, then you're going to be somebody who I trust. Despite everything else, he said, I believe in nepotism. That's how bold he was. But it wasn't that nepotism was right. The message and the lesson we should have got from that is that you still go do what you're doing. Advocate for the community. Legislation. Push forward. But you've still got to have someone because you're so involved and so engaged to look out for those other things that other people who know you're involved and engaged would use to bring you down, to embarrass you, or to discredit you.
02:40:31
Speaker 1: All right, family. Got the warning. 29 away from the top of the hour, Dr. Tyrone Prowse. Ray's calling from New York City. It's on line one. Grand Rising. Ray, your question for Dr.
02:40:39
Speaker 3: Powers.
02:40:40
Speaker 9: Yeah, good morning, Carl. Good morning, Paul. Okay, Carl. I can talk more about this on Friday. I won a trivia contest with a Jewish talk show, and I know all about the liberty. That's the question I wanted on. And Dr. Powell is correct. The question I want to ask you is, you know about the 1914 program when the Jews, they give us Uganda. And I want to know, Is it the fact that they didn't go to Uganda because they really wanted Palestine, or is it that the British said, you're not getting Uganda? That's the question.
02:41:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, the British have— I say this to my students, and I always ask them before I start the conversation, I say, does anybody here have a Great Britain? Because the British have been horrific bastards in the world. If you go back— And I know we can't, we don't have time to discuss it all, but there's a wonderful book by Simi Farsoun called Palestine and the Palestinians, where he goes back to 1914, the Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and show you that everything that is happening now was written and said during the early 1900s. We're going to find a place. And in fact, in the Balfour Declaration, Lord Balfour said that we don't even intend to We don't even intend to get any input from the inhabitants of that area now. One of your callers said before that these are not the original inhabitants. In 1914, 1915, 1916, Lord Balfour of Great Britain said that when we take this area, and we will take it. Remember, Israel didn't come into existence in 1948. In 1914, 15, and 16, he said, when we take this area, we don't intend to get any input from the inhabitants of that area. Now, you don't have to take my word for it. Go back in your own research and look up the Balfour Declaration and see how he made that declaration about how they were going to carve up Africa, how they were going to carve up the
Sykes-Picot Agreement with an agreement between the French and the British. of how they were going to create these. Kuwait wasn't even, Kuwait was part of Iraq. They carved it out to reward somebody that helped them during World War I and World War II. They said, we're going to take part of their land, put some borders around it. That's why Saddam Hussein, when he invaded Kuwait, said, in reality, this is just a province of Iraq. There was some truth to what he said because the British and the French carved it up, and they made a plan of carving it up as early as the early 1900s in the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, where they decided in the future— and we're in 2026 now— This is what's going to happen. And they put it in paper and in writing. So that's why I think we can come back with the student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and history is best qualified to reward our research. Because if I read that, I know how they come in, I know when they come in, and then I can counter that. Again, as we were taught in the FBI Academy, you can't counter anything that you don't fully understand. And despite our emotion and our feelings and us being upset, the research has to be done and the countermeasures put in place.
02:43:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me just add this to what Ray said about Uganda. I know they weren't even going to Uganda, but it was too far deep in Africa, too black. And if you recall, Dr. Powers, the raid on Entebbe, that's the airport.
02:44:10
Speaker 6: That's exactly right.
02:44:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I landed at the airport, I said, oh, this is Entebbe. You've been hearing about the raid on Entebbe. So this is why the Jews knew all about it, because they were familiar with the area. That was going to be their area. So thank you, Ray, for bringing up that about Uganda.
02:44:27
Speaker 6: Thank you. See, this is what I will say very, very quickly, Carl. When I went into the FBI and I came back out again, it was so much pushback. People say, well, how can you come to us? How we think you're not a spy? You've been in the FBI. When they send people into our communities, into our countries, the Israelis have people everywhere, in every country in Africa, and they try to get into every organization in the United States. If you go back and read the early reports of the SCLC, Not only did the United States have people in those organizations, the Israeli Mossad. The Israeli Mossad created two assassinations in northern Virginia of people who were going to help Iraq develop the ability to create certain weapons. They killed them in the United States in northern Virginia in a hotel when they were here for a lecture. That's fact, not fiction. All right? So the reality of the matter is that in all of these particular situations— They have got people into our organization. When I went into the organization and brought information back, our people, some of our people resisted me. And I'm saying, listen to what I'm saying. I don't want to date your sister, your daughter, or anybody in your family. You cannot even believe what I'm saying, but go do your own research. But do not take the time to listen to what I'm saying because I'm not talking about it as a research method. I'm telling you where I've been, how I've done, where I've been, and operations I've been involved in. And do what you will. I don't need to follow up with you, but do something with it. From the black politicians to the organizations to the people in our community, we've been pitted against each other. Hell, we're like Tupac and Biggie. The NAACP and SCLC, the Urban League, they're battling about. They got us fighting for grants and nonprofit organizations fighting against nonprofit organizations. Who's better at dramatically reducing crime? Our plan is better than your plan. That is not of your own volition. That is a plan. Because as long as I can keep you divided, then I can make sure, as the COINTELPRO paper said, that there's, you know, Hoover said, for all of this triteness, there's a trueness. and that there is power in unity. And as long as we can keep them organized, not just rapper against rapper, West Coast against East Coast, but SCLC against NAACP, the Urban League against this, one megachurch against another megachurch, or a megachurch against a minor church, however I do it, because as soon as these people ever put all this aside, And say, listen, we can have different methods, as Malcolm X said, never confuse the methods with the objectives. You can have a different method than me, but if we have the same objective, I'll meet you at the finish line. I'm not going to spend time criticizing your method because it's different from my method. We can have different methods, but we have to have a common objective, and that is to help save. our people and advance our cause.
02:47:23
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. I know we're coming up on a break, but Epstein, from where do you know, from the people that you know and all the theories that you see, and I'll let you respond when we get back from the break. Epstein, was he working for Israeli intelligence? Was he part of the Mossad? And I'll let you wait for your response when we get back. Family, you got a question for our guest, Dr. Tyrone Powers? Reach out to us. Our telephone number is 800-450-7876, and we'll take your phone calls next. And Grand Rising family, thanks for rolling with us on this Monday morning. Thanks for spending your week with us. My guest is Dr. Tyron Powers.
02:48:03
Speaker 2: Dr.
02:48:03
Speaker 1: Powers is a former FBI agent. This is noted for his book, Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Let me just add this. The comments expressed on this morning are not those of Urban One or Radio One or any of its subsidiaries. The comments are totally mine and Dr.
02:48:18
Speaker 2: Powers.
02:48:18
Speaker 1: All right, Dr. Powers, having said that, there's a lot of chatter on the
Internet that Epstein is not dead. He's somewhere on the beach hanging out in Haifa. He was part of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence. What have you heard?
02:48:32
Speaker 6: I haven't heard anything about that. Let me just say something to you. I know the methodology. The methodology is that anyone in a position of power that can be compromised or that can be an asset to what Israel believe is their cause, they're going to recruit through the Mossad. That's why they had information inside Iraq, inside Iran, inside the United States, inside of black organizations and white organizations. Again, their philosophy at their academy is by way of deception. So anyone in a position of power, Anyone that is in a position to be compromised, anyone that could help their effort in any way, whether it's financially, in terms of intelligence, in terms of information, they will reach out to. They don't discriminate in any form or fashion. They're in the business of taking emotion out of their intelligence work. and gathering all the intelligence they can to use at any particular point they think they need to do it to develop their cause. And if and after they've used that particular person and they don't care what their nationality is.
02:49:38
Speaker 2: Then you gave your life for the cause.
02:49:40
Speaker 6: Listen, just as a quick example, when I was working counterterrorism, the difference between the Israelis, if a plane was hijacked, this is what we were trained at Quantico, Virginia. and someone took a hostage, the Israelis' philosophy was, we'll kill the hostage first, then kill the person, to show them that we care nothing about the hostage. The mission is bigger than any particular person. In the United States, we had hostage negotiators. The Israelis had no negotiators. They just said, we're going to kill them both, because the message is always going to be, by any means necessary.
02:50:13
Speaker 1: Got it. Sixteen away from the top there. I've still got a bunch of folks who want to talk to you from across the country. Let's go to Baltimore. Sandra is on line two. Sandra, your question for Dr. Powers.
02:50:22
Speaker 14: I'm rising to Dr. Powers and to you, Carl.
02:50:25
Speaker 9: Dr.
02:50:25
Speaker 15: Powers, it's a pleasure to talk to you this morning.
02:50:27
Speaker 14: I read your book, excellent book.
02:50:30
Speaker 15: Dr.
02:50:30
Speaker 14: Powers, I have two questions. My first question is, who do you think are committing these hangings?
02:50:40
Speaker 6: I don't know. I have some inquiries as to being involved in those investigations. I haven't got fully involved yet, and so I don't want to speculate. I have some ideas, but I don't know. Let me put it that way. Oh, I know.
02:50:55
Speaker 1: Before you go on, Sandra, hold on for a second. There's a report of a hanging this morning in Forestville, Maryland. You guys heard about that?
02:51:05
Speaker 6: Yes, I saw that.
02:51:06
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
02:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. I just wanted to make sure that, and family, if you didn't hear, you can check it out. There was a report of a hanging in Forestville, Maryland this morning. But go ahead with your second question, Sandra.
02:51:17
Speaker 14: My second question, Dr. Fowles, do you think that this could be equivalent to the children that was found dying in Atlanta, Georgia?
02:51:34
Speaker 6: Could it be equivalent to or could it have been related to that? It could be. That's what I'm being asked to look at by some other people right now. But I can't say definitively because I haven't been intimately involved in that.
02:51:53
Speaker 14: But you're thinking on that line.
02:51:55
Speaker 4: It's a possibility.
02:51:56
Speaker 14: It could be, right?
02:51:57
Speaker 6: It's a possibility, yes. And in my training anyway, you rule everything in before you rule anything out.
02:52:03
Speaker 15: That's why I asked you.
02:52:05
Speaker 14: And one last question. Dr. Powell, have you, in your line of work, have you been targeted?
02:52:15
Speaker 6: That's a question. Yes, in the sense that yes, but this is what I try to do. And I think I've mentioned this to call either off air or on air. I try not to talk about the things that have happened to me, even though they've been great. I talk about some of them in the book, you know, about the vehicle that blew up with me, you know, about all those things. But I don't want to get in front of an audience and make people who are on the fence about getting involved in helping us. I don't want to spread fear. So whatever's happened to me, I've made a conscious decision that this may happen to me. I've had some things, as you Some of you may or may not know that it happened to my daughter, and even the police department says this is targeted against you. Even the police detectives have said that. But I don't talk about that a great deal because, you know, I feel that I'm on a mission, and what God has given me to do, I'm going to do, and I'm not going to help people. I'm not going to become a megaphone for fear. I'm just going to become a megaphone for our people staying engaged. We're all going to die. Death is undefeated. So that's going to happen anyway. And so I don't want our people fearful of acting for fear of the repercussions and consequences. And the way that we often do that is talk about what specifically happened to us. And I try to stay away from that, except for as you read in my writing.
02:53:41
Speaker 1: Gotcha. And the writing family is in the book, Eyes to My Soul, The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. That's Dr. Powell's bestselling book.
02:53:48
Speaker 2: 800-450-7876.
02:53:48
Speaker 1: Everlasting checking in from Alabama. He's on line three. Everlasting, your question for Dr.
02:53:56
Speaker 5: Powers.
02:53:56
Speaker 1: Grand Rising, brother.
02:53:58
Speaker 9: Grand Rising, Dr.
02:53:59
Speaker 8: Powers and Carl Nelson.
02:54:01
Speaker 2: First, Dr.
02:54:02
Speaker 16:
Powers, I just want to ask a question.
02:54:04
Speaker 4: You answered the question.
02:54:05
Speaker 16: First of all, I just want to let you know that this is not an attack. It's just a question I just want you to answer and see your viewpoint on it. Now, I remember when the last time you was on, you said about the jokes coming in from Nicaragua to South Central.
02:54:20
Speaker 2: And you said that you were aware of it.
02:54:21
Speaker 16: If I remember, you said you were aware of it and you wanted to do something about it.
02:54:26
Speaker 2: Then I think you had said that it was an order.
02:54:29
Speaker 16: Came in from the White House for you to stand down.
02:54:31
Speaker 4: That's right.
02:54:32
Speaker 2: Okay. Right.
02:54:33
Speaker 16: So I'm just saying that in an event that that happens, if you continue to work for the FBI, knowing that situation, I'm just saying, would that make you complicit or not complicit?
02:54:47
Speaker 2: I have a follow up.
02:54:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's not that's not that I don't I don't I don't see any question as an attack. First of all, I'm not that thin skinned. And I'm more than willing to answer the question. First of all, that order came in for the DEA. I was with the FBI. The Drug Enforcement Administration had initiated that investigation. They had saw ships, planes being loaded with drugs in Nicaragua, and that drugs were coming into this country. And there was a DEA agent who I knew personally who said that he reported that. He wrote up a report. He set up a surveillance, and he was in the meantime. in the midst of making an arrest, and he got the order to stand down. It came from the Central Intelligence Agency, and it came from the White House for him to stand down, one. Two, but even if that had taken place, and that had taken place in other cases, I still think that there's a— it doesn't make you complicit only in this sense. I still think there's still much to be learned if you don't allow one particular thing, even as massive as it is to make you turn away, there's still some learning you have to do so you can bring some specifics back to our community. I think you do a cost-benefit analysis. I think the fact that I can tell you that, the fact that I talked to, as Carl had on last time while I was on the program with Ricky Ross, who reached out to me from in prison and had those conversations, the fact that I stayed and was able to provide information to a number of individuals outweigh me walking away because I was angry about this particular situation was going to go on anyway. And I think that what I was able to bring back and help a number of people, not only in this country but outside of this country, was worth me staying. And I wouldn't call that complicit. I would call that strategic.
02:56:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me just add, I'm glad you mentioned that because a lot of people think the whole series started with Gary Webb, started with Ricky Ross, actually started with his brother, David. David kept calling our program and saying, my brother said, we didn't even know who Ricky Ross was. He was in jail and da-da-da and battened on and set him up. He wanted to speak to Maxine Waters and Dick Gregory and... You know, and Gary Webb was on his way to San Jose. He was in L.A. going to San Jose. And he heard the program. And he called and said, I'm going to do that. with Dick Gregory. So we said, okay. Obviously, white boys are going to investigate. So we kind of shined it on, Doc. And then he called me back one day, and he says, here's the first draft. And he faxed it to me. He said, get it to Maxine Waters. And she was at the convention, the Democratic Convention in Chicago. We had one of our reporters there. I told her, stand over this fax machine. I'm going to give you a fax, something to you, and just give it to Congressman Waters. She says, can I read it? I says, you read it, but forget everything that was in it. That was the first draft of Dark Alliance when Gary Webb did the series. So that's all that came about. And people are trying to say they broke this. People even in Washington, D.C., they broke the story. Never heard of Ricky Ross or his brother David Ross. That's how that started. Okay. We have the CIA coming to our radio station, Doc, by the way, trying to find out that we got the information. But anyway, let's move on, because we've got some more folks who want to talk to you. Eight away from the top. Dante's in Baltimore, has a question for you. Grand Rising Dante, your question for Dr. Tyrone Powers.
02:58:03
Speaker 2: Wow.
02:58:04
Speaker 4: Grand Rising, Grand Rising. Hey, like DMX say, if you don't know, you slow like Baltimore. I just wanted to really say, the amount of information that you've given is just amazing. Like, And it just the thing that Mr. Powers, it feels like you can't say is that wake up black people. If you're stupid, you don't understand. But reality of it is they spent real money and real time and keeping us uneducated and keeping us blind to the way that things are running. So the reality of it is my question for you, Mr. Powers, was why? I always call and talk about money, you know what I mean, and solutions. So my solution is always I built up businesses to do stuff, and I always talk about day trading. The reason I talk about day trading is that it gives us a way to make money. Even if we got kicked off the shores of the United States, we could still trade in their markets or so on and so forth. And it also gives us a way to be able to stay in the house and trade and make money. Outside of that, can you give me or have you thought of a way, because you said we need to start having closed-room meetings, and that means we need to start not telling everything on the Internet. We need to start having things more intricate. Can you think of another path that we can travel for financial gain or things that we can do to be able to pull out financial resources?
Because I respect all the history and stuff, but what about the bread?
02:59:16
Speaker 8: What about the money?
02:59:17
Speaker 4: Kids respect the money and the people do. So what do you think that we could do? What path could we follow in order to be able to get the– ball rolling in a financial form for us in the States right now, or better yet, for us in Baltimore, D.C., D.A., you know, initial right now, because I'm trying to get the ball rolling tonight. Put $ 100 up, $ 200 up, $ 1, 000, whatever. What do you think we could do as far as an avenue to get some money going outside of day trading and stuff of that nature, secretly to an extent?
02:59:45
Speaker 6: Yeah. You probably have a better answer.
02:59:47
Speaker 4: For that than me.
02:59:48
Speaker 6: I just believe in the education on all those particular issues. I remember that They were trying to bring financial education into the school system for children as young as middle school. We used to have a segment called Home Economics, and the key word to that was economics. It wasn't just about baking cookies and iron clothes. It was economics, and that's now gone completely from the system. So that's the short answer. I know we're running out of time, but that's the short answer. And maybe you and I can talk later in a more robust way.
03:00:22
Speaker 2: All right.
03:00:22
Speaker 1: Thanks, Dante. We're going to keep moving. Five away from the top now. Sarah, real quick, is calling from Washington, D.C., has a question for Dr. Powers. Grand Rising, Sarah, your question for Dr.
03:00:32
Speaker 2: Powers.
03:00:33
Speaker 15: Thank you so very much. Good morning. How can or can we audit some of your classes?
03:00:42
Speaker 2: Sure.
03:00:42
Speaker 6: I mean, I can tell you exactly when I'm teaching and where I'm teaching, and you can audit them anytime. Obviously, you're not taking them for credit, but you can audit them anytime. But if you reach out to me, I can tell you when and where I'm teaching at powers at tpowersconsulting.com and when and where I'm teaching because that changes from semester to semester based on my schedule and my travel schedule and my other work. Then I can definitely let you know that and feel free to audit them. I would love to have you there. I think you will find that. The students, even the young students from the array of students we have in those classrooms are really engaged, and I think we do a lot there.
03:01:20
Speaker 4: Thank you.
03:01:21
Speaker 15: Let me make sure I have it. It's powers at T as in Tom, powersconsulting.com?
03:01:29
Speaker 6: Yes, powers at T powers. T as in Tyrone.
03:01:33
Speaker 4: Don't call me an uncle, Tom.
03:01:34
Speaker 6: No, I'm just kidding. Powers at Tpowersconsulting.com.
03:01:40
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sarah. See if Sean can make it real quick for us. He's in Laurel. He's on line five. Sean, real quick, Grand Rising, your question for Dr.
03:01:48
Speaker 2: Powers.
03:01:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.
03:01:56
Speaker 9: Hello.
03:01:57
Speaker 1: We're going to let you go because you're not ready. You got to be ready, man. We're out of time.
03:02:02
Speaker 3: Well, quick, fire away.
03:02:03
Speaker 2: Let's go.
03:02:08
Speaker 5: Okay, Professor Powers, listen, I heard a report that the FBI.
03:02:14
Speaker 2: Came out with after Charlottesville that said that white supremacy was the biggest threat to our homeland security.
03:02:28
Speaker 1: Well, Sean's not ready, but thank you for your call. Maybe he'll comment on what you just said. Thank you, Sean, but we're out of time. We just can't, we just hold like this. The show's coming up.
03:02:36
Speaker 2: Dr.
03:02:36
Speaker 1: Powers, do you want to respond to anything that Sean just said about Charlottesville?
03:02:39
Speaker 6: Just domestic terrorism is more of a threat, and that's what the report said, than international terrorism. The supremacist groups and the militias are a great threat to the security of the United States. We can talk about that the next time, though, Carl. I know you have to go.
03:02:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got to run, but we'll do that next time. Thank you, Dr.
03:02:56
Speaker 2: Powers.
03:02:57
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us this morning.
03:02:58
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
03:02:59
Speaker 1: All right, family, class is dismissed. Thank you for sharing part of your mornings with us. Stay strong, stay positive, please stay healthy. See you tomorrow morning, 6 o'clock, right here in Baltimore on 1010 WLB, and also in the DMV on 1450 WOL.