Saturday, January 12, 2013

Weekend News in January of 2013




Economic justice is still a goal to fight for. It is not just fanatics who are Republicans that want austerity, but some Democrats desire this end as well. The Democrats seem to like the Grand Bargain extremism that will harm the social safety net. The President subscribes to the incorrect view the deficit as the biggest problem in America when we have unemployment issues, health care problems, and other evils going on. He made the Bush's tax cuts permanent for 98 percent of the public. I have no issue with such tax cuts for the poor or the middle class though. We are nearing the second swearing in or Inauguration Address of President Barack Obama. This is a time when both major parties desire austerity and the harm to the New Deal and the Great Society. The President said that he wants entitlement reform, which is code for cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that have helped human beings. Even some want to cut the effective government of Social Security. He organized the Simpson Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission, which talked about this very agenda. The fiscal cliff deal caused tax giveaways mixed with some legitimate portions in it. So, the White House is marginalizing the hard core Tea Party purists as in a strategy to make some progressives in Congress to go along with his centrist economic agenda. When you got some folks agreeing with assassinations and imperialism, we have a problem here. The DLC came about since the 1980's to advance centrists policies from welfare reform to agreeing with the War on Drugs. Even the great political scientist Maya Rockeymoore admitted that: "...I think the president did not make a Freudian slip when he said that he and Mitt Romney actually agree on Social Security.” The notion that Obama would turn “left” in his second term is nonsense, said Rockeymoore, an expert on entitlements. “The reality is, the first term Obama is the second term Obama. That is his disposition, that is his ideology, that is where he’s at. He’s a centrist to his heart..." Even David Sanger from the NY Times wrote back in late November of 2008 that Barack Obama surrounded himself with moderates and he plans to govern from the center right of his party. What we have now also is that some in the GOP want more austerity. There has been a tax increase for those making more than $400,000. Sequester or large defense cuts will come in March 1, 2013. The reactionary Republican Party has been defeated on many areas, but they are not done yet. They refuse to endorse a tax increase in the last 22 years. The GOP is united in their anti-tax fanaticism. This fiscal cliff deal of 2013 included a one-year extension of emergency long-term unemployment benefits to more than 2 million recipients, although it did nothing whatsoever to help the 99ers, the long-term unemployed who exhausted their benefits months ago. The deal also maintained education tax credits, the child tax credit, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, an important supplement to poverty level incomes. Without these extensions, real hardship would have resulted Even Jeffrey Sachs wanted tax increases on all Americans, which will harm the economy. A Wall Street sales tax can even get real revenues to help our nation. The debt ceiling is coming up soon too.

 

The House GOP blocked brief relief for the super storm Sandy victims. This comes in the decline of a lot of the influence or power of the GOP. The outgoing 112th House or heavily Tea Party rejecting a Senate passed bill which provided $60 billion that would be sent to assist the victims of the Super Storm Sandy. Sandy affected New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner promised the governors in those states that the $60 billion would be approved and sent to Obama for his signature as soon as the fiscal cliff was out of the way. Boehner refused to bring Sandy relief to a vote as a concession to the Tea Party extremists, who were angry over Obama's success in raising taxes on the wealthy. Even some Republican politicians from the Northeast where Sandy has impacted denounced their own party, because of the lack of response to the victims. These human being like especially Republican Governor Christie of New Jersey criticized House Speaker Boehner by name and at length. He accused House Republicans of playing toxic palace politics with the lives of the citizens of New Jersey in the back. Republican Congressman Peter King of Long Island announced that anyone from New York or New Jersey would be crazy to contribute money to Republican campaigns. Boehner voted for a scaled down 10 billion dollars bill in the House. 67 Republicans members voted it down since it according to them had $400 million of pork barrel spending in it. They wanted more cuts when human beings are suffering. Paul Ryan of the young guns voted against the bill. Many Southern Republicans legitimately gave money to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but refused to do so in the Northeast. Ryan, Marsha Blackburn, Gohmert, Joe Wilson (the one show said you lie to the President), Steven Palazzo, and others have voted against the Sandy bill. This can harm the Republican Congress people in the Northeast. The radical austerity agenda has been advanced by Ron Paul too. Paul always argued that the federal government should never pay any disaster aid whatsoever, since the victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes had themselves chosen to live where they did. This is sick, evil rhetoric since the federal government has every moral right to help those that need help. The GOP refused to vote on a farm bill with money for food stamp money to 50 million Americans. Now, the old farm bill has been extended until October 1, 2013. The GOP needs to see that civil liberties, ending Empire, making equality real for all human beings, and progressive, efficient government are great ideals to embrace. Either they reject xenophobia or they will perish as a major party in the next 50 years.

 

I knew that there was something wrong with Django Unchained. As time goes on, more information is coming out about the intensions and agendas of the movie. The movie is a disgraceful exploitation of our history indeed. Our suffering is not comedy. Our suffering is a representation of triumph against evil and the long journey ahead of us before we experience true black liberation. Now, this piece of work Quentin Tarantino is at it again. He said that he doesn't dance, because he is not a monkey. We know what he means by that comment. Enough Said. He slandered Roots as not being ringing true in terms of their performances. Roots was never meant to talk about every aspect of slavery since slavery is complex and is extremely graphic. The positive parts of Roots were that it showed a family who suffered slavery and achieved a lot of contributions in the world despite obstacles and injustices against black human beings. For QT to talk about the great 1977 miniseries Roots in such a dismissive way outlines the mentality of many folks who think just like QT. QT is no position to lecture anyone on slavery when he makes a movie that mocks the suffering of black human beings. Now, they or the establishment is allowing the sale of Django action figures including slaves and slave owners. This is truly ashamed that in this period of history, we have to witness this garbage. Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett Jr. starred in roots. He refuted Tarantino's critique as being stirring stuff up and making a mockery out of racism. Gossett left a Malibu movie theater after seeing just 20 minutes of the film. Gossett is right to say that: “Django is a very small speck on the horizon to what we should be giving energy to." Lou Gossett Jr. starred in Roots. In 1977, it came out to be seen by audiences of numerous backgrounds. Roots is a documentary series that is superior to a film that compares the Maafa to a spaghetti Western. Django Unchained allows not Django to take down the main villains, but the German. Hollywood will not discuss real history on Black revolts against slavery unless if they are mostly distorted or rarely shown. Even “Woman Called Moses” or a TV movie about Harriet Tubman (which starred Cicely Tyson as Harriet Tubman) is the only movie on Harriet Tubman in modern American audiences. My father has the VHS tapes of a “Woman Called Moses.” Even Spielberg's Lincoln didn't show the roles of Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Robert Smalls, Martin Delany, etc. in ending the American slavery system as we know it. The real life Madison Washington slave revolt (which is similar to Django) is not shown either in the silver screen. Madison Washington failed in his goal to reach his enslaved wife. Yet, he succeeded in freeing himself and freed 130 other men, women, and children in 1841. He left Virginia to Canada in 1839 or 1840. On November 7, 1841 Madison led an insurrection aboard the Creole and with help from his comrades sailed to Nassau in the Bahamas. The Bahamas were under British rule and as such had abolished slavery. So, the true story about hundreds of black men and black women fighting for their freedom is so much more interesting and fun to know about than the fictional story about Django. Slavery was deep in the conscious of America history. You cannot understand fully about American history without understanding about slavery in general. Slaves were forced to build the monuments in D.C. from the Washington Monument to the White House. Wall Street once functioned as a slave market. Rosewood was not popularized in a huge group of viewers even when it was an excellent movie. In the final analysis, unHolyweird is about making money. Many of its films advance political propaganda.

 

Stats are stats. We know that violence or oppression in the world is heavily driven by socioeconomic and other factors not by the mere presence of firearms alone. The only way to solve violence in the world is by addressing education, the economy, the Drug War, mental health, and other real subjects, not just executing gun safety actions alone. Japan and the UK have astronomical gaps in homicide rates even if their societies are mostly unarmed. The reason is that each nation has a different culture, educational system, infrastructure, and socioeconomic paradigm. Japan has a much larger population than the UK, yet Japan is less violent. UK has nearly 3 times higher more homicide rates than those in Japan. According to the UN’s study, which includes the most recent annual data available, Japan, with a population of roughly 130 million, had a mere 506 homicides over the stretch of a single year. Conversely, the UK, with less than half of Japan’s population (53 million) had 722 homicides. The rates per 100,000 people for Japan and the UK are 0.4 and 1.2 respectively. The UK, despite being an unarmed population, and having virtually no gun violence, still has 3 times the murder rate than the nation of Japan. Reasonable gun policies have worked in America, but radical gun control doesn't work. We have examples to prove it. The USA has work to do on crime issues, but America has about 4.8 homicides per 100,000, which is less than the global average of about 7 homicides per homicides. Mexico has more gun violence than America with a homicide rate of 22.7 murders per 100,000. Socioeconomic factors are one major factor for the rampant violence not a lack of gun control laws, because Mexico has very strict gun control laws now. Also, homicide is part of all murders, but it is not the whole information on murders from other forms of violence. According to the FBI’s 2011 analysis of homicide in the United States, out of 8,500 gun-related homicides, only 323 (3%) were committed using rifles of any kind – including “assault rifles.” Compared to knives and other cutting instruments (1,694), blunt objects (496), and bare hands/feet (728), rifles, we should put information into context. Assault rifles only account for 1 percent for all gun violence. This doesn't mean that anyone should have these weapons. This does mean that if we want to stop violence in some of the most crime ridden areas of America, we should promote education, an end to the Drug War, defeat the underground market of gun sales, create economic opportunities like making having a job a human right (as health care is a human right as well), and other solutions not just gun safety. Wealth ought to given to the people not exclusively to the corporate financier special interests. The real cause of violence is not guns by itself. It is caused by socioeconomic disparity, cultural corruption, political turmoil, War on Drugs issues, and other issues. Conversely, education, socioeconomic development, technological progress and the leveraging of technology to empower the downtrodden, impoverished, and violence prone, are the antibiotics used to battle and ultimately cure the infection of crime. I believe that the federal government ought to have a role in solving these issues including the local arena too. We need to get organized. Law abiding citizens should never be scapegoated for the actions of deranged individuals. Law abiding citizens have every right to keep and bear arms not criminals. No one solution can solve this problem, because we need to address health, socioeconomic issues, educational issues, and gun safety points. A multifaceted approach is necessary to solve this issue.

 

Mali has a complex situation. The West wants to reorder Africa. The U.S. has given covert support to the al-Qaeda in Libya. Also, there are Wahhabis or al-Qaeda related groups in Northern Mali. France wants to intervene in Mali as a means to control that region under the guise of fighting terrorism. There are even some deluded souls that try to defend France's intervention in the African nation of Mali. Al-Qaeda being in the Maghreb is closely allied with the LIFG or the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. France supported the LIFG as France gave aid to NATO’s 2011 proxy invasion of Libya. France not only the UK and the USA gave weapons, training, Special Forces, and even aircraft to support the overthrow of Libya’s government. Even Bruce Riedel out of the Brookings Institution (or a corporate financier funded think tank) wrote that Algeria will be next to fall back in August of 2011. Radical elements are already in Algeria. Now, Libya is a Western sponsored sanctuary for al-Qaeda. The U.S. State Department now is allowing the MEK or Mujahedin-e Khalq to cause havoc in Iran and try to collapse the government in Iran. This is the pattern of the West aiding terrorist organizations to fulfill imperialist geopolitical goals. Libya is still having infighting with many factions. This is not about Islam. It is about extremists that exploit religion and are allies with U.S.-Saudi-Israeli-Qatar networks as a means to keep this immoral war on terror continuing. The LIFG is invading northeast Syria and they are fulfilling NATO wishes to attempt to overthrow Assad. If the AQIM (or Al-Qaeda in Maghreb) affiliates are driven out of northern Mali by the French, they could end up in Algeria. The Wahhabi movement in Mali is funded by the Saudis, who are American allies. This movement is about the most reactionary, backward ideologies being advanced in the world. The Wahhabis were instituted by the British as a means to control revolution in the Middle East back in the early 20th century. These Wahhabis are destroying tombs of Islamic African kings including the world famous Mansas of Mali that are world heritage sites. This is a blatant attack on black culture by these extremists. The Taureg peoples of the Sahel are known to have suffered unjustly by European colonialism.

 

By Timothy

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