A week after graduating from his MBA programme, Ayo Ajayi, a big-hearted Aston University graduate, has helped to establish an innovative new charity which will see books from Aston University’s library shipped to books-deprived universities throughout Nigeria.

The inception of the Michael Andrew Olorunfemi Foundation was prompted by Ayo as a way of providing better educational opportunities for young people in Nigeria. The charity will ship its first batch of books to the country later this month. Between 200 and 1000 books will be donated in the first shipment with at least a further five shipments planned in the next twelve months. The books will focus on subjects offered by the University including Business & Management, Engineering, Modern Languages, Teaching, Life & Health Sciences, Social Sciences, IT, Teaching and English language.

Ayo Ajayi, MBA graduate, Aston Business School, Aston University, said:

“I was inspired by the massive opportunities that I benefitted from during my time at Aston Business School and, before I left to go back to Nigeria, decided I needed to develop a programme which would enable me to give back to the community I come from.

“Education is crucial for development, but with the limited investment in education in Nigeria, this seems to be a perfect way of making a difference and contributing towards empowering people, particularly youth. The remarkable support and exposure that I received during my MBA programme, and particularly the ethics and social responsibility module provided the inspiration for this books project.”

“This kind of collaborative project will significantly compliment to improve the standard of education in Nigeria, build capacity and will hopefully meet the aspiration of the Nigerian students for access to up-to-date and relevant educational material.”

Ayo concluded: “This pioneering project is the result of teamwork, I could not have done it alone. I wish to give credit to all those who have supported the project so far, and are continuing to do so.”

Dr Brigitte Nicolaud, MBA Director, Aston Business School, Aston University, added:

“Ayo has been a delightful student throughout the course, showing both total dedication to his studies whilst bringing joy and fun to his colleagues with his contagious smile.

“Ayo’s energy and determination in setting up the ‘Books for Nigeria’ project is truly inspirational. I don’t think anyone or anything could have stopped him!”

Ayo’s charitable activities have been supported by Chief Olorunfemi – a senior business official in Nigeria and a close relative of Ayo’s. Since completing his MBA, Ayo has returned to his home in Lagos, Nigeria to pursue a career in business consultancy. Co-ordination of the Michael Andrew Olorunfemi Foundation activities from the UK will be continued by current MBA students Wale Adigun, Ayoola Adeola and Fatima Jika. The Foundation will also be supported in Nigeria by Aston Business School Alumni Nigeria chapter led by Tochukwu Kemakolam.

States must use every available minute to draw up a new international arms treaty that could save thousands of lives every year, NGOs from around the world said today as negotiators from 192 governments begin formal talks at the United Nations on Monday.

One person every minute dies as a result of armed violence, with thousands more injured and abused every day, according to the Control Arms Campaign, an international network of civil society from around the world. 128 armed conflicts since 1989 have resulted in at least 250,000 deaths each year.

The Control Arms Campaign calls on governments to commit real diplomatic resources towards drafting a robust and effective treaty to control the conventional arms trade. A legally binding deal that covers all weapons, ammunition and related equipment is urgently needed, the organizations said.

There are currently no comprehensive, legally binding international rules governing the trade in conventional arms, and gaps and loopholes in national controls allow weapons are ending up in conflict zones and in the hands of serious human rights abusers.

"The time for delays and excuses is long gone. Every single country must work to achieve the strongest possible deal to stop arms getting into the hands of human rights abusers and warmongers. We need clear rules that will oversee how states transfer and regulate the trade in arms; this is a no-brainer. By the end of the next two weeks, member states must have made real progress: and this means delivering a draft text", said Anna Macdonald, Oxfam's Head of the Arms Control Campaign.

To save lives and protect livelihoods, the treaty must have specific criteria based around international human rights and humanitarian law and sustainable development.

Negotiations are starting four years after the United Nations General Assembly agreed by an overwhelming majority to work toward an Arms Trade Treaty to establish international rules and standards to better regulate the trade. Just four weeks of negotiations - 120 hours of negotiating time - have been allotted by the UN General Assembly to develop the text of the new international instrument before the final negotiating conference in 2012.

"Half of the world's poorest people live in states that are at risk of, or experiencing, violent conflict. Conventional arms, especially small arms, light weapons and associated ammunition, are used for the majority of grave human rights violations. Now is the time for an Arms Trade Treaty that really protects people, not just states", said Daniel Mack, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Arms Control, Instituto Sou da Paz, São Paulo.

The vast majority of governments in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia have voted in the UN General Assembly since 2006 for the development of the Treaty, In December 2009, 151 of the UN's 192 states voted to begin formal negotiations. Around 20 states, however, have persistently abstained in the UN votes on the Arms Trade Treaty.

"A small minority of states, however powerful, should not be allowed to stymie progress in New York over the next two weeks." said Brian Wood, Amnesty International's head of arms control. "The world urgently needs a bullet-proof Arms Trade Treaty to save lives, protect livelihoods and safeguard human rights."

Note:

The most comprehensive global analysis so far conducted of data on deaths in and outside armed conflict as a result of armed violence, carried out by the Geneva Declaration Against Armed Violence in 2008, found that between 2004 and 2008, at least 208,300 violent deaths were recorded in armed conflicts: an average of 52,000 people killed each year. Evidence from epidemiological surveys suggests that between 2004 and 2007 at least 200,000 indirect deaths resulted from armed conflict every year, and probably far more. Finally, an estimated 490,000 non-conflict killings have taken place worldwide each year in recent years, of which an average of 60% - perhaps 300,000 each year - are estimated to have been perpetrated using firearms. These figures are highly likely to be underestimates.

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Note: This is my sixth and final commentary on the theme "Where do we go from here?" following the rigged May 2010 elections in Ethiopia in which the ruling dictatorship won by 99.6 percent [1]. In this piece, I emphasize the importance of individual commitment and effort to help establish democracy, protect human rights and institutionalize the rule of law in Ethiopia. I argue that there is today a struggle between a host of hummingbirds trying to save Ethiopia's soul and a voracious wake of vultures that have devoured her body. I predict ultimate victory for the hummingbirds following Gandhi's timeless exhortation that "There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."

The Hummingbird and the Forest Fire

In March 2007, I wrote an allegorical commentary during our grassroots advocacy efforts to pass H.R. 5680 (later H.R. 2003 "Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007) entitled "The Hummingbird and the Forest Fire".[1] It was a tale which took creative license on a story once told by Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Prize laureate for peace. In Dr. Maathai's story,

One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird. This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, 'Don't bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it's only a drop, you can't put out this fire.'

In my version of the story, the hummingbird never stopped humming. Indeed, my hummingbird is miraculously multiplied into battalions of young forest firefighters putting out the flames of oppression and dousing out the smoldering ambers of ethnic hatred and division in Ethiopia, while planting the seeds of freedom and democracy. My young hummingbird firefighters take on a single mission: Help build a new democratic society guided by a national vision which embraces the indivisible unity of the Ethiopian people, the territorial integrity of the Ethiopian nation and governance based on democratic principles, the rule of law and protection of human rights. My hummingbirds totally and completely reject the bankrupt and deceitful ideas of those who claim that Ethiopia is no more than a mishmash of competing and antagonistic ethnic, tribal, linguistic, religious and regional groups who must be kept corralled in their own Bantustan-style homelands or "kilils".

Can Hummingbirds Really Stop the Forest Fire?

It is often heard in some Ethiopian circles that the efforts of a few individuals or groups will not amount to much in bringing about political change. They say the dictatorship is too rich, too powerful and too entrenched to oppose. Some have given up hope having surveyed the systematic looting of the country over the past two decades. Others argue for the violent overthrow of the dictators in the belief that those who seized power through the barrel of the gun can be removed only through the barrel of the gun. In other words, fight a forest fire with fire. It is an age-old idea with a predicable outcome: Everybody gets burned in the ensuing conflagration. But suum cuique (to each his own).

History shows that hummingbirds not only can stop fires, they can also start them. The chief architects of the current dictatorship in Ethiopia were originally formed as a small group of "ethno-nationalist" students who were inflamed by what they believed to be injustice and oppression. They were young hummingbirds long before they became old buzzards. As Dr. Aregawi Berhe wrote in his recent book[2]: "On 14 September 1974, seven university students... met in an inconspicuous cafe located in Piazza in the center of Addis Ababa... The aim of the meeting was to (a) wrap up their findings about the nature and disposition of the Dergue's regime with regard to the self-determination of Tigrai and the future of democracy in Ethiopia, (b) discuss what form of struggle to pursue and how to tackle the main challenges that would emerge, (c) outline how to work and coordinate activities with the Ethiopian left, which had until then operated according to much broader revolutionary ideals." They set out to "dispose" of the Derg (military junta that rules Ethiopia after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie) and replaced it with a one-man, one-party dictatorship. In other words, tweedle dee replaced tweedle dum!

World history shows that individuals and small groups -- the hummingbirds -- do make a difference in bringing about change in their societies. The few dozen leaders of the American Revolution and the founders of the government of the United States were driven to independence by a "long train of abuses and usurpations" leading to "absolute despotism" as so eloquently and timelessly expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Their vision was founded not only on the need for independence from the yoke of British colonial rule but also the necessity of perfecting the unity of the American people after independence. They formed a constitution for one nation to be governed under one constitution of the United States of America (which had some significant imperfections), which has endured for 223 years. The Bolsheviks won the Russian Revolution arguably defending the rights of the working class and peasants against the harsh oppression of Czarist dictatorship. They managed to establish a totalitarian system which thankfully swept itself into the dustbin of history two decades ago.

Gandhi and a small group of followers in India led nationwide campaigns to alleviate poverty, make India economically self-reliant, broaden the rights of urban laborers, peasant and women, end the odious custom of untouchability and bring about tolerance and understanding among religious and ethnic groups. He launched the Quit India civil disobedience movement in 1942 culminating in Indian independence in 1947. Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo led ANC's Defiance Campaign and crafted the Freedom Charter which provided the ideological basis for the long struggle against apartheid and served as the foundation for the current South African Constitution. In the United States, Martin Luther King and some 60 church leaders formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming the driving force of the American civil rights movement.

Social change depends a great deal on the circumstances of social forces in a given society. Political change in Ethiopia today seems improbable not because of the invincibility of the dictatorship but because of the lack of unity and commonality of purpose among the opposition. This calls for the establishment of a new political culture of cooperation, collaboration and coalition-building among anti-dictatorship elements, who now seem to have retreated into passive spectatorship of the dictatorship. The political history of contemporary Ethiopia could best be summarized in the words of V.I. Lenin: "One man with a gun can control 100 without one." There is no doubt that the handful of core leaders of the dictatorship will cling to power at any cost. Though Lenin may be partly right, his empirical observation is countered by the irrefutable logic of the old Ethiopian saying: "The gathered strands of the spiders' web could tie up a lion." (Dir biaber anbessa biasir.) If one hundred unarmed hummingbirds could come together as one with a commonality of purpose and determination, they could overcome one vulture no matter the width of his wingspan or the sharpness of his claws. In the absence of such a ratio of hummingbirds to vultures and the widespread disillusionment with the dictatorship and disarray in the opposition, the self-empowerment of individuals and action by small committed groups of individuals as one of the most viable means of effecting change and bringing about democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia. Simply stated, to bring about change, citizens as individuals must be active by being active citizens.

Hummingbirds Must Keep on Humming

The morality tale of the hummingbird is instructive to all Ethiopians. Despite the ferocity of the forest fire, the hummingbird did not stop carrying its droplets of water. Dictatorships are analogous to a forest fire. They consume everything in their societies. Like the raging forest fire, they also seem unstoppable. But as Gandhi taught, the fires of dictatorship are always stopped by the waterfall of truth and love: "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always." The reasons are simple[3]. In the end tyrants always fail because though they have guns and tanks, they lack ideas and vision. They lose because they live in a world of darkness and ignorance. They are incapable of transforming themselves or their societies because they are trapped in their own cycle of repression that feeds off their ignorance and wickedness. And like Dracula, the legendary bloodsucker, they can only live on the blood -- and sweat and tears -- of their victims. They can not survive otherwise. Dictatorships use brutality because they can not convince their people with the strength of their political or philosophical arguments, the persuasiveness of their logic or the abundance of their good will. They fail because they can not withstand the force of truth and always slip and fall on the pile of lies and deceit that is their foundation.

Though dictators are destined to the dustbin of history, they will delay their inevitable rendezvous by proclaiming to be anointed by the masses. They put themselves out as the saviors of the very masses they oppress ruthlessly. They claim to have special qualities that give them the right to rule the masses forever and exhort the "herd" to follow them blindly and unquestioningly. In concluding his May 2010 "election" victory speech (a/k/a a public demonstration against Human Rights Watch for its critical report), dictator Meles Zenawi expressed gratitude effusively to the Ethiopian people for re-appointing him and his party to complete a quarter century on the throne. "Once again we, over five million EPRDF members, on behalf of our martyrs and our selves solemnly express our gratitude to day, standing before you, the Ethiopian people, who have the sovereign right and power to appoint or dismiss your leaders. We salute you!" An old Ethiopian saying teaches us to beware of a "wolf priest praying in the midst of a flock of sheep." No doubt the wolf will "salute" and "express gratitude" to every sheep he devours. But do the sheep return the salutation and gratitude?

All of us committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia have choices to make and actions to take as individuals. That choice is between good and evil; that is between joining the host of hummingbirds that carry droplets of water to put out the fires set by a ruthless dictatorship, or siding with the wake of vultures that use their enormous wings to fan the flames of ethnic hatred and division to perpetuate themselves in power. Those who play with the fires of ethnic politics to cling to power should beware the backdraft.

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA

[1] http://almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/2007/03/hummingbird-and-forest-fire-diaspora.html
[2] Aregaw Berhe, A Political History of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (1975-1991) (Los Angeles: Tsehai Publishers, 2009), p. 38.
[3]See footnote 1

The late night hours were filled with panic, dread, and death.

It was midnight on January 13 in Port-au-Prince. Just seven hours earlier, a 7.0-earthquake shredded the capital, leveling whole city blocks and burying thousands in concrete tombs. But in the tragedy and destruction, one woman was fighting to bring new life into the world.

On January 12, Turlanje, 32, was nine months pregnant with her third child. Just before lunch, she started to feel the first pangs of labor. They continued throughout the day and then, just before 6:00 p.m., her house started to shake violently. "I did not know what was going on," she said. "It was not until later did I find out it was an earthquake."

As a result of the quake, her neighbor's house toppled over her two-room home, causing the roof to crash down. Miraculously unscathed, she and her husband emerged to find their neighborhood reduced to slabs of concrete and webs of rebar. Dazed, they joined the steady stream of people heading to the grounds of St. Bernadette's Church in Bolosse.

The baby was still coming and soon after they arrived at St. Bernadette's Church, Turlanje and her husband were forced to get their midwife. "Everybody was crazy," Turlanje says. "Even the midwife lost one of her children. But even in her loss, she took care of me."

Around 10:00 p.m., Turlanje realized she was going to have to deliver the baby in the yard of St. Bernadette's Church, amidst the panicking crowds, clouds of dust, and piles of rubble. "I was worried," Turlanje explained. "I was not expecting to deliver my child during a tragedy."

Despite her fears and the chaos that ensued around her, Turlanje pushed. And pushed some more. "I was suffering a lot," she says. "But I was helped by God."

She pushed and pushed until 1:00 a.m., when she finally gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. They named her Gael, after the baby's father, Gaeton. "She was beautiful," Turlanje says, beaming.

Now nearly six months old, baby Gael hardly ever cries. No matter where they are, she rests contently in her mother's arms and watches the world pass by with wide eyes. Turlanje goes to church almost daily and wishes she could leave Port-au-Prince to live with her mother in the country.

After living in a camp at St. Bernadette Church for a few months, the family is now back in their two-room, block-like home in Bolosse. Half of their roof is still missing. "Life is difficult. My husband is not working," Turlanje explains. "We are just trying to survive."

Problems sadly not uncommon in Haiti, particularly as families try to pick up what was shattered in seconds on January 12.

But despite their troubles, Turlanje does not worry about medical care. Whenever she or her children need to see a doctor, Turlanje travels up the road to International Medical Corps' clinic at Bolosse, where they can receive care regardless of their financial circumstances.

"This clinic means a lot to [us]," says Turlanje, resting Gael on her knee. "Sometimes when our children are sick, we might not have the money to send them to a doctor. Now we can bring them here. Thank you."

It isn't only the health care that keeps Turlanje coming back. She also has a special connection to the place. Hugging the side of St. Bernadette's Church, the International Medical Corps clinic also marks the site where baby Gael was born six months earlier.

"I came here to this spot on January 12," she says. "Other people were crazy...[a]nd I gave birth to this child."

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Members of Congress see it in their town meetings, their mail, their polls and focus groups: the voters are angry. Of course at any given time, some set of voters are always unhappy. But right now it's different. Right now most people are unhappy.

The level of anger and unhappiness does not arise from disagreement with some government policy. It is not because they don't like the new health care law, or "big government." Voters are angry and unhappy because from their perspective the economy still stinks. Vast numbers of those who lost their jobs when the recklessness of the Wall Street banks sent the economy over the cliff, are still out of work. Those who are working have experienced stagnant incomes. Everyday Americans are worried about the economic futures of their families.

And it's no wonder. A recent study showed that more than half of Americans have been directly affected by the recession.

When Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, there are not many things it can actually do to improve the economic picture in the four short months before Election Day. But there is, in fact, one thing Congress can do that will have a big impact right away: pass a jobs bill that provides fiscal relief to state and local government and extends unemployment benefits.

State and local government is facing the worst fiscal crisis in a generation. The recession slashed revenue, yet the same recession increased the demand for many critical services. As a result there is a very real chance that in the next few months state and local government will lay off between 600,000 and 800,000 people. That result would be catastrophic for the already-weak economic recovery - as well as the political environment for Democrats.

Let's say that the economy generates a fairly robust 150,000 new private sector jobs each month. That's a total of 600,000 new jobs between now and November. But that job growth could be entirely wiped out by layoffs from state and local government. If private sector job growth is slower, then these layoffs could move the job figures into negative territory. That could very well pull economic growth into the red as well triggering a double dip recession.

And extending unemployment benefits is equally critical. The Labor Department says more than 1.7 million people have run out of unemployment benefits, and that figure could rise to more than 2.1 million people by the end of this week.

Americans who are out of work are not laggards who want something for nothing. They are - by definition - seeking jobs that the economy does not provide. Does it make any sense that Congress could find the money to bail out Wall Street bankers and their $10 million bonuses and can't afford to make sure that the victims of Wall Street recklessness have something to keep their families from falling into poverty until they can find work?

More crucial to the cold calculus of economic growth, by blocking Congress from extending unemployment benefits, the Republicans have withdrawn millions of dollars of potential spending from the economy - money that would otherwise have been spent at the grocery store or the mall. That's just plain stupid.

Of course you hear the Republicans - and some Democrats - blathering on about how an extension of unemployment benefits or fiscal relief to the states must be "paid for" through other cuts or new revenue. They argue that the public is "fed up" with rising deficits and we must restore "fiscal discipline" now.

You didn't hear a peep from the Republicans when it comes to "un-paid for" funding to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And there is a case of collective Republican amnesia when it comes to the fact that when Democrat Bill Clinton left office there were fiscal surpluses as far as the eye could see - and that in eight short years, the Bush Administration ran up more in national debt than all of the other Presidents in American history combined. Nor does any Republican reference former Vice-President Cheney's famous observation that "deficits don't matter."

But as a matter of sheer economics, we do not need "fiscal discipline now." We need economic growth now. Economic growth is the only real path to assure a shrinking deficit and a healthy fiscal policy over the next decade.

The "real economy" is not composed of loans, money flows, currency transactions, or stock markets. The "real economy" is the process of creating goods and services that meet people's needs. Truck drivers, fire fighters, farmers, steelworkers, software engineers, tailors, janitors, writers, teachers - most people who work for a living -- are all engaged in "real" economic activity. The flow of money is not the "real economy" at all. It is a means of keeping score - a means of allocating who gets what - of determining what products are produced and what services are provided.

That doesn't mean that the level of personal debt, or the federal deficit, or the price of the dollar aren't critically important to economy. But they are ultimately only important insofar as they impact what goes on in the "real economy" - the quantity and mix of goods and services.

That's why the biggest economic problem we face in the short term is not the federal deficit - it is the deficit between the capacity of our economy to produce goods and services and the amount of economic demand there is to pay people to engage in productive activity.

Right now, nine and half percent of our work force is sitting idle, not producing the goods and services people need to enjoy a better life. The goods and services they would have produced on any given day are simply wasted - lost forever. As a society, we miss out on the housing they could have built, the food they could have produced, the software they could have designed, the research they could have done. That is actual economic waste. It means there is simply less economic pie to go around. And since the top two percent of the population do a pretty good job making sure they get a big slice, you can bet that average Americans are the ones who are stuck with smaller and smaller pieces of pie.

So our first priority is to eliminate the deficit between our productive capacity and what we are actually producing as a society. First and foremost we have to get people back to work.

In other words, putting people back to work is not a "lagging indicator" of economic growth. It is economic growth. Economic growth is about nothing other than people working to produce more goods and services.

The problem is that in recessions, individual consumers and businesses cut back on spending. They set money aside and reduce the demand for goods and services. During the current recession the savings rate in the U.S. went from only 1% to 6.4%. Now it's 4%. In fact, over the long haul our society should be saving more, but the problem is that a big increase in saving during a recession reduces economic demand and just deepens the spiral of fewer people working and less demand, which leads to more layoffs and less demand and so on.

So while it is perfectly rational for an individual or family to cut back its spending and save more when times are tough, that is a disaster for the overall economy. But acting together through the government we can break that spiral. That was the great lesson that John Maynard Keynes learned from the Great Depression. The federal government has to act decisively to close the deficit between productive capacity and actual production - it needs to create the economic demand to assure that everyone is back at work. To do that it has to borrow money. That's what is necessary to put the economy back on its feet and grow private sector demand once again. We did it in early 2009 with the Stimulus Bill that saved or created almost 3 million jobs. We need to do more.

There is absolutely no evidence that the increase in public sector debt necessary to spur demand and put people back to work has been "crowding out" private borrowing or raising interest rates. In fact interest rates are at record lows. The Federal Funds rate is near zero. Over the last year the yields on long-term bonds have actually dropped. There is, in other words, less competition to place debt than a year ago. In fact, the markets are more concerned with the prospect of deflation, not inflation.

President Obama and the Democratic leadership of both the House and Senate have pushed hard for measures that would prevent state and local layoffs and extend unemployment. The Republicans have obstinately opposed these measures. And there are some Democrats who worry that a vote for a jobs bill would leave them vulnerable to a charge that they are "tax and spend" liberals.

But let's face it, the Republicans are going to say that no matter what they do. The real question between now and the election is whether the Congress can do anything to make voters feel that their personal economic situation is improving. The real question for voters in November won't be if a Member of Congress voted yes or no on House Bill "whatever." It will be whether their brother-in-law found work.

The last thing Democrats can afford is to go into Election Day with an economy that is actually losing jobs once again. That is exactly what may happen if Congress does not pass state fiscal relief and extend unemployment benefits. That would lead to a political narrative that is much more toxic for Democrats in swing districts than any single vote - certainly not a vote to save the jobs of firemen, police officers, teachers, the people who care for the elderly and the men and women who repair our roads.

One final note. The Republicans often blithely argue that "only the private sector creates real jobs." They need to get out of their ivory towers and fancy think tanks and look around. In the economic sense, "real" jobs include any job that actually produces goods and services that add to the store of our collective well-being.

Next time you need a police officer, ask him if he has a "real job." How about the teacher who teaches Johnny to be a productive member of our society? What about the guy who builds the road you drive to work on; or the fellow who cleans the street after the ball game? What about the person who empties the bed pan for an elderly veteran in a nursing home? Now compare the contribution these people make to our collective well-being with the trader at Goldman Sachs that bets on the price of exotic derivatives for a living.

Congress must pass fiscal relief for the states as soon as possible. And while it's at it, the Senate needs to finish the job of holding the big Wall Street banks accountable that caused this economic mess in the first place.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

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Cleveland and Ohio have good reason to be upset. Their home-grown hero has left town, for an easier run to a championship. If news reports are accurate--and they rarely are--his departure will mean a $20 million loss in revenues for small businesses in the Cleveland (or perhaps, just arena) area.

But, do not put the blame on James.

I know, I know, the "sport mirrors life" analogies are way overblown, but this is not really a story about basketball per se. It is more a matter of business, and social values. Indeed, perhaps this "sports" version of what has been happening to our middle class will penetrate our collective psyches more than what seem to be a series of isolated events, such as closing of manufacturing plants first here and then there, and the dominance of the non-value producing financial sector on the economy.

So, put the blame where it belongs--a rejiggering of our cultural values foisted upon the country by rightwing media. And, the Lloyd Blankfeins of the world.

Rightwing media, and their belief tanks, preach that our economy works best for everyone when each person does what is best for himself. No obligations to anyone but the shareholders, who are spread far and wide. Sure, throw in a bit of charity, but heaven forbid to think of justice, or even loyalty. (See, e.g., "My Response to Mortimer Zuckerman: Charity Should Be a Way Station on the Road to Justice",December 29, 2009).

Move your workforce offshore, increase profits, and then set up a charitable foundation in the city you decimated to take minimal care of a small fraction of the lives and livelihoods ruined.

Contrast this with the ethos of Bill Russell who led the Boston Celtics to umpteen championships. He stayed in Boston for his entire playing career. The Celtics bought no one. All of his teammates rose through the ranks in Boston. He made them better players, and together the team--let's repeat, the team--won.

Russell and the Celtics worked at building championship teams. They didn't cobble them together with pieces from elsewhere. They worked.

Enter, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs's CEO.

He claims he does "god's work". Work? What exactly does Goldman Sachs produce? Money, to be sure, lots and lots of it. And, today, to hear the rightwing ethos, that is the only measure of value. Sure, Goldman Sachs provides some value as facilitators and lenders, no doubt about that. But, their billions come from trading for their own account.

Compare him to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They also made money, lots and lots and lots and lots of it. But, they did it by producing a lot of tools and gadgets we all use today to make our work and lives better, more efficient, more fun. Or, to Stanley Cohen and Herb Boyer. They made money, lots of it. But, they invented the way we can produce human proteins in large amounts, uncontaminated by what may be swimming around in peoples' blood. Anemic because of kidney failure? Now, blood counts can be normalized by taking a small amount of a human protein produced by normal, but not diseased, kidneys. Diabetic because of pancreas cell failure? Now, blood sugar can be controlled by taking the same insulin the body is no longer making. Painful arthritis not controlled by standard medicines? Now, symptoms can be eased by injecting a human protein that sops up one of the major disease-causing molecules before it reaches the joints.

So, it's not the money. It's the ethos, the work, the relationship of what is produced to that money.

Lebron was not 'patriotic' to the place that nurtured him, that gave him his start. But, Blankfein and his friends are not very patriotic to the country that gave them not only their start, but also weakened the rules of play so they could make huge fortunes, only to tank the rest of the economy.

And, what have Blankfein and his cohorts done since that man-made disaster? Used their money and clout to enable them to continue the same activities, paid themselves enormous bonuses and fought against taxes to help pay the expenses for the damage they did. Sorry, I did forget the $500M they will set aside to give to worthy causes. Thanks Lloyd. The trillions in middle class wealth your (and your colleagues) activities cause? Someone else's responsibility, eh? What about the $13B laundered through AIG? Tough luck.

And, we let them get away with it. Yes, we did.

So, Lebron James is going to make a lot of money, and the Miami Heat paid a lot of money to three superstars so they can all be champions together. What in our culture has taught him that doing anything differently, for any other reason, is of equal or greater importance? In fact James did not even take the highest bidder--an easy road to championships was more important.

And the owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers are furious--after all, the value of their franchise just dropped precipitously. It would be interesting to check their business histories to see what they did when loyalty would have cost them a deal, or a profit margin. What did they do?

Don't put the blame on James. It is how we raised him. Yes, us.

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CARBONDALE, Ill. — It's the kind of publicity any university might dream about: An instructor uncovers a possible flaw that's causing some of the world's most popular cars to accelerate suddenly. His ground-breaking work attracts interest from Congress and reporters worldwide.

But as Southern Illinois University's David Gilbert sought to show that electronics might be to blame for the problem in Toyotas, the world's largest automaker tried to cast doubt on his findings. One Toyota employee even questioned whether he should be employed by the school, which has long been a recipient of company donations.

Electronic messages obtained by The Associated Press show the automaker grew increasingly frustrated with Gilbert's work and made its displeasure clear to his bosses at the 20,000-student school.

"It did kind of catch us off-guard," university spokesman Rod Sievers said.

So did the fallout. Two Toyota employees quickly resigned from an advisory board of the school's auto-technology program, and the company withdrew offers to fund two spring-break internships.

"I didn't really set out to take on Toyota. I set out to tell the truth, and I felt very strongly about that," said Gilbert, who was among the first to suggest that electronics, not sticky gas pedals or badly designed floor mats, caused the acceleration that required the Japanese automaker to recall millions of vehicles.

Toyota insists its relationship with the school remains "strong," and company officials say they have no plans to stop contributing to SIU. They also say the two Toyota representatives who stepped down from the advisory board did so merely to avoid any appearance that the company was exerting influence over Gilbert's testimony.

"We have absolutely no issues with SIU and retain an excellent relationship. That won't change," Toyota spokeswoman Celeste Migliore said.

Driven by his own curiosity, Gilbert in January found he could manipulate the electronics in a Toyota Avalon to recreate the acceleration without triggering any trouble codes in the vehicle's computer. Such codes send the vehicle's computer into a fail-safe mode that allows the brake to override the gas.

Gilbert said he reported his "startling discovery" to Toyota, and the automaker "listened attentively." But Gilbert said he never heard back from the company, which has steadfastly maintained the problems were mechanical, not electronic.

Next, Gilbert told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, then made plans to tell Congress.

"I didn't feel I could just be passive in this," he said.

Along the way, Gilbert told the university in writing that he had been tapped as a consultant for a company called Safety Research & Strategies Inc., which asked him to study the safety of electronic throttle controls.

Gilbert's boss, Terry Owens, wished him well: "Good luck in your investigation," Owens wrote in a Feb. 10 e-mail. "I hope it leads to public safety and publications."

One of Gilbert's research partners, an assistant professor named Omar Trinidad, nervously asked Owens whether the findings would "negatively affect my tenure track or even jeopardize my tenure with SIUC? If you have any reservations on what we are doing, please do not hesitate to inform me."

Owens tried to reassure Trinidad: "If your investigations are upheld and have major impact resulting in papers, presentations, and national recognition of expertise, these are all factors that will benefit your research productivity."

Hours later, on the eve of his congressional testimony, Gilbert appeared in an ABC News "World News" report showing correspondent Brian Ross driving a Toyota rigged to quickly accelerate. When it did, a shaken Ross said he had a hard time getting the car to come to a stop.

ABC News later acknowledged that a picture in the segment showing a tachometer with its needle zooming forward was taken from a separate instance in which a short-circuit was induced in a parked car.

But almost immediately after the ABC report, media outlets began calling the school looking for Gilbert. By then, he was headed to Washington – without a cell phone.

Hardly anyone at the university knew Gilbert was going to Washington to testify, Sievers said.

The next day, Gilbert made his case to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and lawmakers seized on the testimony as proof Toyota engineers missed a potential problem with the electronics.

Gilbert's appearance unleashed a publicity firestorm that Southern Illinois scrambled to control. E-mail chatter among administrators talked of the need to tout Toyota's "very productive relationship" with the university.

Within days, a product-liability attorney representing Toyota said company attorneys wanted to meet with Gilbert and university officials to discuss Gilbert's use of donated Toyota vehicles and "related matters."

"We would like to explain our analysis of the situation and what we believe is a reasonable solution," Vincent Galvin wrote.

At the meeting four days later, Gilbert said, the visitors pressed him to justify his testimony – something he refused to do, saying he stood by his sworn statements to Congress.

Gilbert, who owns a Toyota Tundra pickup, believes the meeting "was meant to maybe intimidate me."

The university asked Gilbert and Jack Greer – director of the auto-technology program – to fly to California to see a demonstration at Exponent Inc., a consulting firm hired by Toyota.

"I wasn't really sure what the point of the trip was, but to keep the peace, I agreed to go," Gilbert said.

Toyota did not wait for that visit to fire back. Six days later, a group of experts assembled by Toyota to refute Gilbert's findings told reporters his experiments were done under conditions that would never happen on the road.

Gilbert's work "could result in misguided policy and unwarranted fear," Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research, told reporters. His organization is funded by a group of auto companies that include Toyota.

To Gilbert, "it seemed like an awful large amount of effort to be extended by a company to dispel something." He was unswayed by what he saw in California.

The pressure on him continued to build. On March 8, Mark Thompson – identifying himself as an SIU alum and, without elaboration, a Toyota Motor Sales employee – voiced in an e-mail to the university's then-chancellor, Sam Goldman, his "great concern and disappointment" about Gilbert. Thompson said he was "deeply disturbed" by what he called Gilbert's false accusations about the automaker.

Thompson reminded Goldman that he and Toyota regularly contributed to the university – including a $100,000 check to the auto-tech program in late 2008 – and "due to the outstanding reputation your automotive technology program has, we donate much more than money," including cars.

"I ask you why your organization allows such activities to be performed by one of your professors and most importantly allowed to be reported to the media in a false manner," Thompson wrote. "I believe he should not be an employee of our fine university."

Goldman later assured Thompson that "we are taking this matter very seriously for the reasons you cite in your e-mail and for our very strong desire to maintain our relationship with Toyota."

As a research university, Goldman added, faculty are allowed to research independently and publish their findings, while observing ethical and conflict-of-interest guidelines.

Gilbert insists he never felt his job was threatened, though "there were some moments where I kind of felt I was standing alone."

Still, he said, if his work "can somehow make a car safer in the very narrow scope of electronic throttle controls ... then to me it's worth it. Because that could be someone's life that I could be saving."

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