On the Eve of the 2nd Presidential Debate of 2012

The 2012 Presidential election have interesting choices. There is never a dull motion as it pertains to this election. People have the right to vote who they want to. Also, for those who don’t want to vote for Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama, there are many third party choices in the ballot boxes as well. It’s a shame that third party platforms typically have better plans than the 2 party duopoly in America (and third parties don’t have much political power nationally). People shed blood for the right to vote and I don’t want that right to be relinquished at all. So, I do respect the activists that are fighting against the unfair voter ID laws in the nation. I do like some of the voting rights victories in Ohio and other states in the Union. Restricting days on when a person can vote definitely will cause voter suppression in the short term and the long term. Today, we live under unique times. We are either for the interests of the 1 percent or for the interests of all Americans. The progressive human rights movement has reach success in many places like Scandinavia. Scandinavia’s social democratic experiment has decreased poverty, promoted universal health, and built up the educational apparatus in that region of the world. The pro-corporate, pro-global 1% banksters hate this since it refutes the 1%’s ideologies of neoliberalism & Austrian economics. Deliverance and justice are concept etched in people of every color and background. It has been a part of real spirituality. The origin of the system of compassion, humanism, and social justice of course came from Africa. Africa is the homeland of the first humans on Earth; therefore all people should have a specific appreciation of the great continent of Africa. We are linked in the world as a community not in isolation. The USA can achieve the civilization of social democratic principles, because of the young generation is waking up heavily about the world in general. A nation which has enslaved and persecuted Africans, and almost exterminated all Native Americans can truly repent by developing into a more humane, democratic, and egalitarian society. The Presidential race has interesting dynamics. As Tavis Smiley said, one candidate is afraid of losing the election and the other candidate is desperately trying to win. Mitt Romney has promised to cut taxes on rich, which receive record low taxation in decades. He wants to block many regulations in the financial arenas. The Romney/Ryan ticket wants to privatize part of Medicare & part of Social Security in the future. This austerity economic death wish will make the profits of private corporations to increase since privatization by its very definition will help private corporations. Romney wants the private sector to have more profits while the poor to experience no radical national solution to their plight. Romney wants to sacrifice the resources of the many (by cutting pre-K educational funding & wanting kids to borrow money from parents in order for children to pay for college. Romney’s lies and constant switching of positions are examples of desperation on his part) to benefit the interests of the few. The Democrats promote their errors via sheath and slickness without being as so overtly reactionary as the Republicans are. President Barack Obama is wrong to refuse to eliminate the unjust laws and unjust foreign policy measures that were instituted by the previous Bush administration. The President is wrong in trying to justify assassinating potentially American citizens if they are accused of terrorism without due process of law. That’s wrong. The Simpson/Bowles Commission and pro-AIPAC rhetoric signifies the errors of the Democratic establishment too. The current President should be made accountable for his political policies indeed. Yet, as the Umoja crew wrote, the brother President Barack Obama isn’t responsible totally for this system of corruption. It’s a white supremacy power structure (going on for centuries before the current President was born) that is responsible for the current oppression going on in the Earth. Private oligarchs control a lot of Western society. So, we have a choice. We can vote for either men or for a Third Party candidate. Regardless of who wins the election, we shouldn’t be pessimistic or hopeless. We have the responsibility and power to fight against poverty, help our communities, build up our people, and to love justice to be given to all of humanity. Instead of harboring a genuflection of “rugged individualism,” we must to go and adhere to the establishment of the beloved community.

 

Now, people have been talking about deficits and debt. We should talk about these important subjects, because they affect us directly and indirectly. I don’t believe in the extremists though. We can solve our debt and deficit issues without taxing the middle class into oblivion and without cutting every social program down as well. There are alternative solutions to these issues as advocated by Ralph Nader, Webster Tarpley, and other human beings. We can first end corporate welfare and end corporate tax loopholes as a first step in helping lower the federal deficit and the debt. Getting rid of corporate welfare will save billions of dollars a year. The major expenditure is from the military industrial complex not domestic activities. Also, you can tax corporations, especially corporations that don’t pay any form of taxation. There are 12 major corporations (like Honeywell, Verizon, General Electric, etc.) in 3 years that made $167 billion in profit, paid zero tax, and got $2.5 billion back from the Treasury. The economy is a dynamic and complex situation. You can return the tax rates and effective tax payments back to the 1960’s level and billions of dollars can be received. We should end the evil war on terror (that involves covert oppressions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) to save $150 billion. You can cut waste in the military industrial complex. These funds can cause a creation of a national public works program to rebuild our ailing infrastructure in the USA. As the economy grows as Paul Krugman says, then you can handle the debt more thoroughly. The deficit hawks are still making their comeback. They believe in the fantasy of the solidity and fixity of the gold standard. The deficit hawk/Tea Party types are hypocrites since they criticize the federal government for spending money. They hate government spending which can help the poor and the elderly. Yet, they live in places that receive farm subsidies, federal water works, and federal funds for the military that promote their current economic well-being. Some of them rely on Medicare when Medicare is a government program. Public intervention was necessary to fight against discrimination and to promote progressive efforts in order to benefit the American people. In order to solve poverty, you have to change the economy not scapegoat the poor. A policy of the government being committed to full employment is an excellent plan (like a major jobs program. The scholar Minsky is right on that point of advocating making job creation the central theme of decreasing unemployment. So, you need a comprehensive jobs program. Social programs can be maintained in order for those programs to help the aged, the infirm, the elderly, the extremely poor, etc. Our minimum wage must up too in order to see a solution). There should be other universal programs can help fight back against poverty. A national employment plan is what the late Dr. Martin Luther King wanted before he was assassinated. It is a historical fact that faster growth of worker productivity doesn’t mean you can reduce poverty, but sometimes a more active government can increase market derived income and total income (which is a good thing). I disagree with Minsky that poverty is largely an employment problem. Poverty is caused by income inequality, discrimination, and by oppression by the corporate elite (not just by unemployment alone). Education and training are always necessary to fight poverty, but you need a jobs program also. As Hyman P. Minsky said brilliantly, if you have private investment strategies alone, it will not be comprehensive enough to end income inequality since it will not directly affect low income workers. You need also public sector spending. So, you need full time and full year jobs in reducing poverty rates.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize going to the European Union is hypocrisy at its finest. The Nobel Peace has been given to people who have deserved it; but still now, this is a wrong decision on so many levels. It is not right for war criminals and controversial figurers to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The EU getting this award represents an attempt by the establishment to validate reactionary and immoral political policies in the world. In our days, some want to respect Wall Street criminality and neoliberal war mongering. The Republicans and the Democrats in some of their members love the audacity of Empire not the audacity of hope. The Nobel Committee members are a representation of privilege, imperial foreign objectives, power, and war. They don’t advocate many peaceful people now. Many bad characters getting the awards is not flattering at all. The Norwegian Nobel Committee claims that the European Union is an advocate of peace and reconciliation in the European continent. They claim that the EU worked in Europe to make Germany and France to become strong allies. The EU in the Nobel Committee’s eyes is a bulwark for human rights and democracy. The problem with this assumption is that the EU is allied with the war mongering group called NATO. The EU promotes laws that are against individual freedoms and national sovereignty. Many EU member states are in the NATO alliance. NATO was created to promote defense and even war not peace. NATO was instituted in the midst of the Cold War. The Cold War promoted paranoia and hysteria about Communism and an arms race came about. NATO has been involved directly in imperial wars from Truman to the age of Obama. 21 EU nations are NATO members. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to a war criminal like Henry Kissinger (he supported the Vietnam War, the dictator Augusto Pinochet after the CIA supported the coup of Chile’s Salvador Allende, he agreed with the genocide of East Timor, etc.). Kissinger supported the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power and reign of terror in Cambodia. He was one creator of the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200 (or NSSM 200). The document advocated genocide and forced population control of the peoples of the Third World (mostly, people of color since let’s keep it real here). He called for the elimination of 500 million people by 2000 and millions more annually. Kofi Annan was awarded the prize in 2001 as the UN Secretary General back then. He never tried to stop the evil Iraq sanctions that killed ca. 1.5 innocent men, women, and children. He did nothing to stop the war on terror and he agreed with the errors of Israel (as opposed to more progressive voices in Israel that really want peace. The Nobel Peace prize committee supported reactionaries like Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. To Rabin’s credit, he woke up before he was assassinated. Netanyahu wants a possible war with Iran under certain circumstances). Al Gore won in 2007 and people know that he is pro-business, pro-war, etc. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 when he follows the same foreign policies as the previous administration (filled with drone attacks, laws that violate human rights, etc.). Now Alfred Nobel (or the name of the person in which the award is named after) was involved in inventing dynamite and he manufactured weapons. He was a 19^th century war profiteer.

 

People have discussed about the Hugo Chavez reelection in Venezuela. I don’t agree with Chavez on every issue like when he promoted the new world order years ago. I don’t agree with the Papacy or the Jesuits at all. Yet, the West wants to dominate Latin American and South American nations in order for the West to get their oil plus other material resources. Venezuela is a nation that disagreed with American foreign policy. America likewise wants Hugo Chavez to be eliminated from the seat of power in Venezuela. Latin America has done a great job in rejecting Western imperialism and the reactionary policies of the North. This time is a special time, because it proves to the world that neoliberalism is a vice that ought to be rejected at every turn. Chavez was reelected, because Venezuela’s economy has improved over the course of 4 years. He won by 10 points. The corporate media in America doesn’t like this, because Venezuela owns it vast oil resources. If the majority of the citizens in Venezuela want Chavez to be in power, that’s their right. Hugo Chavez isn’t perfect of course, but he is right to criticize the imperialism of the Bush administration. He survived an attempted coup against him in 2002. The coup was ended by people and loyal soldiers. Latin America has more progressive leaders now when back in the day; many reactionary generals ruled the nations of Latin America heavily (under the support of Washington). Hugo Chavez isn’t ashamed of his Afro-Latino heritage, which I admire. Many Venezuelans are black just like me. Their history and culture ought to be respected. True democracy is allowing the people to make a voice on decisions in a nation without the existence of a monarchy. Yankee arrogance is truly a disgrace and it must be eliminated from the psyche of some Americans. Chavez has been used as a boogeyman by the reactionaries. The truth is that Chavez is no direct threat to American soil at all. Venezuela now has poverty cut in half, university enrollment is doubled, and universal health care plus old age pensions are in that nation. Many similar political leaders were elected and reelected in Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia. Here is how Lula da Silva, the popular former president of Brazil summed it up: “Chavez’s victory is a victory for all the peoples of Latin America. It is another blow against imperialism.”

 

People know about the Benghazi attack in Libya. A lot of questions remain about the total compositions of the attack. On September 11, 2012, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans were killed via an assault on the U.S. consulate and a CIA facility in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Both Presidential candidates are talking and debating this issue publicly. The Republicans accuse the White House of not providing adequate security for the U.S. personnel in Libya. The Democrats accuse the Republicans of trying to politicize the tragedy and the Republicans cut spending for embassy security. The early reports cite the incident as a product of arising from a spontaneous action from a respond to the anti-Islamic video made by an American. The Republicans believe that the administration covered up information about what in their minds was an al-Qaeda action. President Barack Obama said that the initial reports were based on available information and a full picture came later for him to recess the total event. The former chief of security at the American embassy in Tripoli and the commander of a 16-member military security team that had been deployed there but then withdrawn testified that they had both asked for the team to be kept in place but were overruled by the State Department. The big picture is that the events in Libya represent the error of the US/NATO attack in Libya (which led into the murder of Muammar Gaddafi). Ironically, Libya still has al-Qaeda related militias that dominate certain regions of Libya. The State Department didn’t want more military to be used to protect certain consulates because they felt that Libya was experiencing a new democracy. Libya doesn’t have a strong central government and the nation is in risk of a total civil war. Heavily armed militias govern much of the nation. If changes don’t come, Libya could be the next Afghanistan. The CIA asset Mustafa Abu Shagur was forced out of the nation. There is a battle in Libya between the more progressive Muslims and the reactionary/extremist Muslim for the control of the nation of Libya. Many thousands of militia criminals attacked Bani Walid (by refused to allow food, medicine, and supplies in or out which effected its 70,000 residents). The rebels used rockets, tanks, and shells having gas against residential neighborhoods. Many other villages have been looted and burned by rebels. Children have been killed. The General National Congress approved of the actions of the rebels in bani Walid (the residents of the town didn’t turn over individuals who were allegedly responsible for killing a former rebel who was involved in hunting down and murdering Gaddafi in 20110. U.S. backed militias terrorists are involved in this tragedy. NATO committed war crimes in Libya. Many black people in Libya have been unjustly imprisoned, lynched, and murdered by terrorist pieces of work. We must always defend our brothers and our sisters in Africa plus in the world. It's very hypocritical for some people to legitimately expose the plight of the Palestinians, but won't speak a syllable in condemning the evil of our black sisters being raped by racist, terrorist Arabic militants. Many prisoners have been tortured. The Libyan Observatory for Human Rights, which had opposed the Gaddafi regime, declared recently, “The human rights situation in Libya now is far worse than under the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi.” Many of these terrorists are from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. This group is all over the Middle East. The US armed and backed some of these same terrorists that were instrumental in causing regime change in Libya. This war as the facts bare out had nothing to with democracy of “humanitarianism,” but the Western action of imperialism in the Middle East (and the conquering of energy resources in the locations of the first humans on Earth). These militants aren’t representative of a democratic revolution, but they are extremists. Decades ago, the West backed these same militants to attack a democratically elected government in Afghanistan. Now, we have more tensions in the Middle East. Now, we have the murder of innocent Americans in Libya. This unfortunate incident will cause more openings for U.S. imperialism. Both major parties refuse to expose the real truth on Libyan activities. They back a sectarian civil war in wanting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria but ignore the religious and political liberty violations occurring in the Gulf States (because of the oil interests in those states). The Benghazi affair is about evil support for evil people influencing the murder of innocent Americans. Now, we don’t need isolationism. I oppose that. What we need is diplomacy, trade, real negotiation, a rejection of neo-conservative thinking, and other reasonable policies to help those in the world international stage.

 

By Timothy