The Vice Presidential Debate and Other News

 

 

The Joe Biden and Paul Ryan Vice Presidential debate was historic. Many people love it and some folks hated it. I believe that on substance and style, Joe Biden won the debate. It wasn't a cake walk either. Both men spoke on many domestic and social issues. Paul Ryan was so reactionary on foreign policy and economic issues, that Joe Biden had no choice but to expose Ryan’s extremism. The debate moderator was Martha Raddatz (who is a foreign correspondent for the military industrial complex). From the beginning of the debate, Joe Biden hit hard at Paul Ryan. Biden said that how can the White House be soft on foreign policy affairs when they created the harsh sanctions against Iran. I don't agree with those sanctions though, because they affect the people of Iran, which have nothing to do with terror. Joe Biden said that Iran doesn't have the fissile material to produce nuclear weapons. He is correct. Joe Biden said that most Americans want to send American troops home and allow the Afghan people to take up the responsibility to handle the situation in Afghanistan. Joe Biden made comments on Libya and an independent investigation is occurring to find out the total facts of the bombing of the consulate in Libya. Biden made his points on economic issues. Yet, both Joe Biden and Paul Ryan are nearly identical on foreign policy issues while Ryan tried to deny this reality. That’s the point. I fundamentally disagree with both candidates’ views on foreign policy since their policies are extreme, militaristic, and archaic. For example, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney agree with drone attacks, anti-human sanctions against Iran, and funding questioning characters in the subversion of the government in Syria. No nation has the right to bomb, invade, and conquer any country it chooses at a whim. They advocated the NATO war crimes in Libya, which is blatantly wrong. Paul Ryan pretty much advocated the same corporate-sponsored reactionary economic agenda. Ryan wants to tax cuts for the super wealthy and have draconian cuts in our legitimate social services. Paul Ryan got best on economic issues in the debate too. Paul Ryan said that the U.S. corporate income tax is so high, but America has the lowest effective corporate tax rate in the world. Few U.S. companies pay the full 35 percent rate due to loopholes and deductions. Ryan refused to say if he would close the carried interest tax loophole where wealthy hedge fund manages use (ending that loophole will create 7.4 billion dollars in 5 years and 17.7 billion dollars in years). Joe Biden said that most seniors are satisfied with Medicare (which is true in the range of 90 percent). Paul Ryan will cause some of Medicare to transform into a voucher program in the future. Paul Ryan was a hypocrite on the stimulus since he said it was bad, but he accepted money from the stimulus law (and Paul Ryan supported the stimulus when Bush was in office back in 2002). The only way to fund Romney’s plan for 20 percent across the board is to increase taxes on the middle class period as admitted by studies. Also, Paul Ryan supports privatization plans of Social Security when Social Security is one of the strongest government programs in American history (if the privatization of Social Security came before the recession and the recession came, people in those private plans might of have their savings ripped out). Ryan made the lie that Social Security is going bankrupt including Medicare. Social Security is fully funded for another 20 years. Medicare can meet 88 percent of its obligations in 2085 if no changes are made. Ryan is wrong to say that the 716 billion cuts in the ACA relate to Medicare beneficiaries. This cut comes from hospitals and health care providers in cutting down waste and increasing efficiency. Ryan claimed that his tax plan will not affect the middle class, but he wants to not guarantee protections to the mortgage deduction and other middle class programs despite having claimed his tax plan won't burden the middle class. I believe that the ACA doesn’t go far enough, but even I know that the ACA is better than the status quo. Ryan claims to believe that the ACA has a death panel like board, but he advocated similar boards in handling heath care. Although, the White House is wrong to advocate the closet austerity measures of the Simpson/Bowles commission though. The debate didn’t talk about poverty, homelessness, or issues of the poor, which was unfortunate. The end of the debate talked about character, abortion, and religion. The reality is that we live under a system of a separation of church and state. I don’t believe in imposing my religious faith upon anyone in a theocratic manner. I do believe in the sanctity of human life (I definitely reject forced abortions as found in the One Child policy of China), but we can have common ground on this issue (like health care, public resources to help people, age appropriate sexual education, and other programs to reduce the abortion rate in America. Also, I reject eugenics and forced population control). Paul Ryan issued slick lies while Romney shown more brazen, overt lies in his debate.  Joe Biden acted like a father talking to a son in defeating Ryan’s arguments on economics and foreign policy (when Ryan wants American troops to be placed in the most dangerous section of Afghanistan when the Afghans should do it). The hypocrites said that Biden went too far and was interrupting, etc., but Romney interrupted the President and the narrator during his first Presidential debate all night. This doesn’t mean that the President is God. The President is wrong on many issues, so that must be known for real. The President is dead wrong on war mongering, on civil liberties, and on his centrism (in appeasing with the Republicans on some issues). That’s not the audacity of hope. That’s the audacity of Empire. Yet, on some issues, Mitt Romney is worse than the President. The lesson of this debate is that I don’t follow centrism, but centrism is better than catastrophe & reactionary thinking as Cornell West eloquently said before. Independent thinking though is superior to both centrism and catastrophe. What a choice indeed (there are third party candidates that people can vote for too).

It's been over 11 years since we have the war on Afghanistan by Western forces. People are talking about the war. More than 2,000 American soldiers have been killed. There has been debate about the war. Folks are discussing whether the war was worth it. During, 9/11, almost 700 people in one firm alone died (from Cantor-Gritzgerald). 343 fire fighters and paramedics were killed in 9/11 including 60 police officers. During 9/11, Only 291 bodies were found "intact." 300 firefighters within three months of the attacks were on leave because of respiratory problems. Almost half of a million New Yorkers are being treated for post-traumatic stress disorders. About 1,100 first responders have since died from acute illnesses related to clean-up activities. As a result of 9/11, Wall Street shut down for 6 days. More than 146,000 people lost their jobs. NYC exceeded 106 billion dollars in economic losses. America later went into war. America attacked Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Much of our civil liberties, privacy, and civil rights have been stripped in the name of national security. That’s wrong. The Iraq War cost thousands of Americans and Iraqi lives. Recently, the NY Times said that the U.S. Special Operations units have quietly returning Iraq at the behest of the Iraqi government. The war in Afghanistan continues after October 7th, 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom is scheduled to end by the year of 2014. That's a century after WWI. 3,196 soldiers were killed. 2,130 Americans, 433 British, and 159 Canadian forces were killed in Afghanistan. The death toll continues to go on. Many soldiers have committed suicide. The American suicides exist among veterans as well. They account for 20 percent of the total annual rate. More than 1 million Iraqis have died in the Iraqi War. There are still the unjust secret wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The drone attacks are still going on. Yemen drone attacks alone have killed up to 1,026 men, women, and children (at least 34) since 2002. 170 Somalis are dead from these drones or Unmanned Aerial vehicle strikes. Pakistan drones have killed over 170 children and over 3,300 people. We still have torture and rendition in the world. Guantanamo Bay still house many people. These wars cost trillions of dollars and these wars aren't worth it. We can easily have alternatives to these wars in developing our foreign policy system

 

 

Jobs and freedom are goals for us among others. It’s been almost 50 years since the 1963 March on Washington. Regardless of our ideological differences, we all demand the protection of civil rights, we want economic justice, and we desire an end of all racism including oppression in the world. There are people from across the political spectrum that believe in the pronouncements from the “I Have a Dream” speech that was made by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Citizenship and civil rights are great to promote. Along with that, we need social and economic justice. The reason is that the massive economic inequality in the world and the injustices merit us to have a change in the structure of how society is oriented. We still want the beloved community. That community is about a cooperative society. It’s about promoting freedom and the dignity of every man, women, and child on Earth. It’s a community filled with justice and human brotherhood plus human sisterhood too. It’s certainly necessary that we should have transformation of values form a thing oriented society to a person oriented society. There must not only be a personal self-transformation among us, but a social transformation where compassion not materialism is the order of the day. We have to change ourselves and society. We should not only talk about the Dream, but live it via our actions. Many people gave up their lives, so we can live near the 22^nd century. Decades ago, our forebears were right to end the totalitarian racial caste system of the South where human civil liberties were denied based upon the color of a person’s skin. Today, we have economic issues. Now, just because you’re poor, doesn’t mean that you’re nothing. You are somebody irrespective if you’re poor, middle class, or rich. All people deserve tolerance, justice, freedom, and of course love. More than 12 million American children go hungry at night and millions of human beings worldview dies of famine in the world. Even the Voting Rights Act of 1965 shouldn’t be gutted. The struggle is still here and protesting in the streets of the USA is great in order to allow human voices to be heard. I will never ally philosophically or ideologically with reactionaries. That is why I support labor rights and environmental protection in the world.

 

 

One young black sister on the Net (from Tennessee) wrote to me about some of the arrogant upper-class black people in America. That caused a thought in my mind. Therefore, I will write about this topic. So, the sister inspired me to write more on this issue of my people. Not all upperclass blacks are monolithic, so I want to make that clear. I am writing about the section of the upperclass black people who are arrogant (who express materialism, who believe in the great evil of colorism, and who harbor a bigoted attitude against black people who are different or eccletic. The truth is that we ought to treat our neighbor as ourselves and our gifts are in our diversity). Some in the upperclass are CEOs, executives, high level Masons, members of the Boule (and other GLOs), celebrities, etc. Now, the arrogant mentality of some of them comes from the modern capitalist economy. This current economy promotes division and economic inequality (which definitely is related to the oppression of the Maafa). The arrogance among some in the upper-class comes from them having a false sense of compliancy or even having a superiority complex against the poor (when many of them mock the poor behind their backs, and even in television). The bourgeoisie upper class types regularly blame the poor for economic and cultural problems collectively in the world. The reality is the poor have far more experience in hard work pound for pound than do the super-rich. In fact, the poor do most of the world’s work and are paid much less. Frantz Fanon made a great point that class oppression can have a black face not just a white one. In other words, some black people who exploit other black people exist with the mind frame of white supremacist thinking. That is why the masses of black people may have more in common with each other than some of the upper elite in the black race. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The bourgeoisie, white, black, or brown, behaves the same the world over...” Some of the bourgeoisie mimic that actions of the oppressor as a means to present themselves as having real power, but they don’t have real Power. See, real power is when you control your own resources, businesses, money, and other forms of real wealth independently. The bourgeoisie doesn’t have that kind of real Power. Power is independence from the establishment in making their own institutions. The orchestrators of our oppression aren’t even the black bourgeoisie per se. They are the white supremacists in the elite. The bourgeoisie are at times are used as conscious or unconscious agents of the elite in order to prevent real Revolution in the world. Malcolm X and Dr. King exposed the bourgeoisie class in great, articulate terms. That is why Dr. King said that the middle class blacks can’t be comfortable with the conditions of our people today. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right to write: “…It is time for the Negro middle class to rise up from its stool of indifference, to retreat from its flight into unreality and to bring its full resources—its heart, its mind and its checkbook—to the aid of the less fortunate brother [and sister]…” Black folks who are rich definitely have the responsibility to not only speak out for truth and justice. They should use their power to actively help out their own people. We all should help our people too, but the rich at a bare minimum should help their people in their own communities. Many of the black bourgeoisie (in the middle class and the rich) are heavily conservative. When I heard some of them speak before, some of them outright have hatred of the poor, some support even Romney, some refuse to speak about social justice, some refuse to expose white supremacy (but blame their own people for the plight of black people. They ignore that discrimination and poverty cause much of the suffering of the poor. It is sick to blame the victim for his or her oppression), and some of them embrace materialism. Also, poverty is bigger than local parameters. Therefore, the federal government has the right to address the issues of poverty & oppression, not just in the local or state level of government. That is why we don’t need national selfishness or scapegoating of the poor. We need a global program to address poverty and that entails many things. It does mean a redistribution of economic and political power and other programs to defeat poverty once and for all. In that way, we can live in a higher destiny as a community of peoples. Therefore, we should learn our history and culture, we should work in independent organization, and form more solutions (along with having love for our black people).

 

 

People know how I feel about Bill Maher. He’s wrong on many issues like him stereotyping Muslims in the world. He’s wrong for his pro-neo conservative foreign policy (including his support of the acts in Fallujah). You can't say that you're progressive when you advocate the government to kill foreign men, women, and children overseas. Bill Maher is a part of the Left Gatekeeping movement. Maher isn't completely anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-worker like numerous authentic progressives are. Maher is in the system. A true radical would condemn and advocate ending the current system in forming a better one. That is why the mainstream media is ruled by the establishment. The mainstream media regularly calls people like John Kerry as far left liberals and war mongers like John McCain as moderates. Many left gatekeepers supported the Western war crimes in Libya, while they ignore the murder of unarmed protesters in the Gulf States of Bahrain & Saudi Arabia (which are Sunni supporters of the West ironically). He’s definitely wrong for his pro-death agenda. A culture of death is evil and it’s still in the world, not just in Western society. Some people promote it like Peter Singer even advocating the murder of infants. Bill Maher is in HBO. He promoted the eugenicist mindset that the death of humans is seen as a casual action. He said that he wants death in the death penalty, he is pro-abortion, and he’s in favor of not only assisted suicide, but regular suicide. He believes in the lie that the planet is too over crowded with humans when certain parts of the world have record low population growth. He admits that he wants to promote death. That’s sick since our goal is to promote quality life in the world and not to believe in promoting more death. Bill Maher said these words after the host Neil deGrasse Tyson asked Maher about his position on abortion and the death penalty. Maher is consistently pro-death. His thinking is demonic and twisted for real. The fundamental truth is that all human life is sacrifice and with value. War and other forms of death violate that principle. I don’t agree with Alex Jones in believing that all welfare sentences people to poverty since welfare can be used to help people to not starve to death. You need a social safety net in the world. I reject the concept of a police state, but privatization has harmed the world. Not everything privately owned is holy regardless of what Alex Jones speaks about. Also, universal health care has worked in Europe, Canada, and many nations globally. America is the only industrialized nation on Earth that lacks it. Also, real progressive or real people from across the political spectrum don’t want people to be exterminated. We want people to experience quality, affordable, and universal health care as a human right and not a privilege. Now, just because someone is unemployed, doesn’t mean that person is lazy or unworthy of living. Even Joel Stein of Time Magazine made jokes about aborted fetuses on the Duley and Bob Morning Show on KLBJ 97.3 radio in Austin (he said that a beauty contest should be held for fetuses). Others folks beyond Bill Maher want sterilization by forced and other evils. British ads run by Marie Stopes International promote female sterilization. Marie Stopes once wrote love letters to Hitler in saying that drunken or diseased people ought to be sterilized. In 1939, Stopes send Adolph Hitler a copy of her book, Love Songs for Young Lovers, according to the London Telegraph. Therefore, the sanctity of human life is more than a slogan, it ought to be defended in the world. Also, it is obvious that the establishment is against universal health care, universal education, and against ending all wars.

 

By Timothy