A Historical Time

 

 

Today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was a hero and an icon. As time went on, I grew in my respect of him. On this day before that tragic occurrence, Dr. King spoke his famous "I Have Been to the Mountain top" speech. He talked about the future and him not living to see the Promised Land in prophetic terms. He summarized the need for equality and justice for all human beings. His goals dealt not only with civil rights, but with economic and more social issues. The human rights movement grew and gained more allies, but in 1968, there were huge challenges. He maintained his view that nonviolence was his aim and philosophy. He was battling for the rights of workers in Memphis and he was continuing his Poor Peoples Campaign. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became more progressive as time came on in his life. Dr. King believed that imperialism was wrong and war was an immoral, brutal display of human destruction. He was right on that point. He rejected an authoritarian version of Communism, but he also criticized capitalism. He said that he wanted democratic socialism. Dr. King stood up for the oppressed. He was not perfect, but he was right on many issues about advancing labor rights, believing in equality, and wanting the poor to receive justice. Dr. King was a revolutionary, because he wanted radical changes as a means to improve the conditions of society. He was courageous in saying that the United States government was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Dr. King maintained an advocacy of peace. Dr. Martin Luther King believed that the military industrial complex ought to never execute a criminal war in Southeast Asia. There is a debate about the total composition of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. Some folks believe that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King. Others believe that a conspiracy was involved in Dr. King's death. In 1999, a Memphis jury found that a conspiracy was involved in the death of Dr. King (with help from the U.S. Intelligence community). We do know without a shadow of a doubt that the U.S. Intelligence Community harassed, slandered, and monitored illegally not only Dr. King, but other activists for justice. Attorney William Pepper, former lawyer of James Earl Ray, who was sentenced to prison as the lone gunman in the King murder, has investigated the circumstances behind the assassination for decades. Even Dr. King's family believed that a conspiracy existed as a means to criminally murder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The trial was interesting. The trial heard 70 witnesses. The trial's verdict believed that U.S. government agencies using Mafia intermediaries and Memphis police officers would murder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because of his views on domestic and foreign policies. On the night of April 3, 1968, Floyd E. Newsum, a black firefighter and civil rights activist, heard King’s "I’ve Been to the Mountain Top" speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis. Floyd Newsum returned a phone call from his lieutenant and was told that he had been temporarily transferred, effective April 4, form Fire Station 2, located across the street from the Lorraine Motel, to Fire Station 3. Other black firefighters were told to be removed far from the Lorraine Motel. Even firefighter Norvell Wallace said that he had been threatened. The two separate ballistic tests conducted on the Remington Gamemaster allegedly used by Ray in the assassination did not match the bullet to the gun. Moreover, witnesses surrounding King at the moment of the shooting say the shot was fired from a different location, from behind thick shrubbery near the rooming house, and not from the rooming house window. David Garrow and Gerald Posner deny that a conspiracy existed while author William F. Pepper believed that the assassination was a product of a conspiracy. One of the greatest evils now is that some want to sugarcoat his message in claiming that he was some moderate or even conservative. The reality is that Dr. Martin Luther King was a progressive that loved peace and freedom. Today, we should continue to oppose the war on terror. Dr. King agreed with anti-colonialist movements all over the Third World too. In a “Face to Face” television interview conducted on July 28, 1967, just one day after President Lyndon Johnson announced the appointment of a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, Dr. King said, “I am not calling for a guaranteed annual wage as a substitute for a guaranteed job. I think that ought to be the first thing, that we guarantee every person capable of working a job.” We don't need the reactionary views of Reagan or Bush Jr. neither the neoliberal/New Democrat view of Clinton/Obama. We need independence, revolutionary thinking, and radical solutions as a means to get the human race to continue to move forward. Dr. King was dedicated for black liberation. Dr. King was determined to end the Vietnam War and systemic poverty in the United States of AMerica. We know that the national security state illegally monitored his activities and murdered other activists from Lumumba to the brother Fred Hampton back in December of 1969. COINTELPRO was an FBI counterintelligence program that wanted to destroy literally black activists. The FBI has been complicit in the murder of Black Panthers all in a brutal fashion. Dr. King never bowed down to the two party system. He said that both the Republican and Democratic parties were imperfect and they were not God at all. Dr. King wanted to internationalize the issue of poverty and oppression, which was similar to Malcolm X desiring to internalize the struggle of black human beings in America. We realize that the March 28, 1968 march in Memphis was infiltrated by government provocateurs (who caused damaged to property for no reason, but to discredit the activists' action of giving human rights to sanitation workers). Police security was restricted in the Lorraine Motel. Dr. King's real message lived on in us since we are heirs of our ancestors' goals and aspirations. It is through hope, faith, action, and righteousness that we can overcome oppression (and continue to maintain compassion for the world of the living God).

 

 

3-D Printers are one of the futuristic devices that are here now. 3-D Printing is when you have a process of making a three dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. It is achieved by using an additive process. This process is when you have successive layers of material being laid down in different shapes. This action is totally different from machining techniques that mostly rely on the removal of material by methods like cutting or drilling (being called subtractive processes). There must be digital technology as a key ingredient in accomplishing 3-D printing. By the early twenty-first century today, there has been a large growth of the sales of 3-D printing machines. Therefore, their price has dropped massively or substantially. It is heavily used in jewelry, footwear, industrial design, architecture, engineering, and construction. It can be found in tons of other fields like automotive, aerospace, dental, medical industries, education, geographic information system, civil engineering, etc. Now, the 3D printing action is made up of modeling and printing for the most part. The modeling action is done with the aid of CAD or computer aided design or animation modeling software. It slices the blueprint into digital cross-sections for the machine to make a guideline for printing. There are different machines used to build up the layering process. The standard date interface between CAD software and the machines is in the STL file format. The STL file is approximates the shape of a part of assembly using triangular facets. Other facets can create a higher quality surface. Now, to print, the machines reads the design from an stl file and lays down successive layers of liquid, powder, paper or sheet material to build the model from a series of cross sections. These layers correspond to the virtual cross sections from the CAD model. The layers are joined together or automatically fused to create the final shape. This technique is used to create almost any shape or geometric feature. Printer resolution shows the layer thickness and the X-Y resolution in dpi (or dots per inch). The printing process is long since it can last for a few hours or a couple of days. Additive manufacturing can be faster, more flexible and less expensive when producing relatively small quantities of parts. 3D printers give designers and concept development teams the ability to produce parts and concept models using a desktop size printer. Some printers can print in multiple colors too. Such 3-D printing processes have been invented since the late 1970's. The 3-D printers have been used domestically to create art, cups, face models, and research. It can increase manufacturing and cause manufacturing to be more flexible. One of the controversial aspects of 3-D printers includes Cody R Wilson printing out a semi-automatic rifle. Wilson wants to prove a point that gun rights is important to embrace, but his actions are controversial.

 

The federal government has acted to prevent anyone or any organization to sue a private company named Monsanto. The Monsanto Protection Act is an evil law. The President Barack Obama signed a spending bill called HR 933. It has language that food and consumer advocates including organic famers don't like at all. The reason is that the Monsanto Protection Act is a giveaway to corporations that was passed secretly in a slick way. Congress passed it when it was hidden in a government appropriations bill. The Act will bar federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified or genetically engineered seeds no matter the health issues that relate to GMOs in the future. The language was written in collusion with Monsanto. Even some members of Congress were unaware that the Monsanto Protection Act existed in the bill that they were voting on. HR 933 was a spending bill aimed at averting a government shutdown (and making sure that the federal government would continue to pay its bills).  This event is similar to the Patriot Act. Many Congress human beings did not read the words in the Patriot Act before they voted to approve it. Many bills are extremely long. The act allows corporations to get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Monsanto creating GM seeds are harming the environment now. We know that GMOs have been found to increase the growth of cancer tumors. They can cause infertility and organ failure in animals. There is a peer-reviewed study which was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London. Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen and colleagues said rats fed on a diet containing NK603 - a seed variety made tolerant to dousing of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer - or given water with Roundup at levels permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard diet. The researcher found that 50 percent of male and 70 percent of female rats died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group. On the other hand, only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group died prematurely. GMOs and other chemicals in the environment is said by some as a huge reason on why human infertility if skyrocketing and why younger children are increasingly being diagnosed with cancer. It is transparent that we should fight against unlabeled GM products and food. We have the right to have organic or natural foods in the world.

 
 

 

More documents prove once against that Homeland Security is spying on peaceful demonstrators. A Senate committee found that fusion centers were breaching civil liberties. These new document prove that the DHS is spying on peaceful demonstrations as a matter of policy. These documents were acquired by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund or the PCJF via a Freedom of Information Act request. Routine DHS surveillance of peaceful demonstrations is ever clear. The fusion centers and the DHS Mega Centers were said to be born as part of a post 9/11 bid to coordinate intelligence gathering efforts among local police, the DHS, and the FBI on anti-terrorism efforts. The thousands of pages of documents received by the PCJF show that these centers assisted in coordinating intelligence gathering (on the Occupy movement and other free speech protests). According to the PCJF, the new material includes details of DHS surveillance of protests in Asheville, North Carolina; Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville, Florida; Lansing and Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles; Boston; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Minneapolis; Jersey City; Phoenix, Arizona; Lincoln, Nebraska; Chicago; Salt Lake City and elsewhere. The documents showed that in NYC on preparation for the October 15, 2011 protests, the DHS documents show that there was coordination between federal and local authorities to use New York City's permitting scheme to frustrate obstruct, or stop free speech actions. The PCJF said that its FOIA released documents show signs of the off the books action or illegal, intelligence collection. One DHS agent wrote in response to a request for information on the Occupy movement in New England that, “This meeting should be finishing up soon and I’ll have access to a non-DHS computer that will allow me to do more looking.” This shows that the DHS is going beyond their principle mission. That is why according to the Senate's bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations release of its findings after a 2 year long probe of the issue, they found that the information collected and shared at DHS fusion centers were unrelated to terrorism. The entire Senate report outlined many of the Homeland Intelligence Reports (HIRs) circulated by DHS between its fusion centers as dubious at best. One source showed the following information: “Of the 386 unclassified HIRs that DHS eventually published over the 13-month period reviewed by the Subcommittee investigation, a review found close to 300 of them had no discernible connection to terrorists, terrorist plots or threats.” The PCFJ is wondering why the DHS Threat Management Division directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to create a “Daily Intelligence Briefing” that included a category on “Peaceful Activist Demonstrations.” This reality refutes the reactionary/Tea Party argument that the President Barack Obama is some Marxist, socialist extremist. The President agrees with increased incursions into Pakistan. He is in favor of the death penalty. He agrees with expanding the border fence and the Patriot Act including warrantless wiretapping. That is all the more reason for us to end the war on terror and having real action to assist not only workers, but all Americans (even those who are poor and without work).

 

 

U.S. citizens in Detroit and across the world face the austerity dictatorship. Fascism never died in the modern world. It is still here. The international bankers have no right to set up a dictatorship in the world at all. Detroit, Michigan as we know is being hit hard by the world economic depression. The Republican governor of Michigan named Rick Snyder is a piece of work. He ousted the Mayor and the City Council of Detroit. They are replaced with an unitary overseer who will combine both executive and legislative functions to enforce austerity. Since March 25, 2013, the lawyer Kevyn Orr will run a lot of functions of Detroit. Even now, Orr is being made the scapegoat of the issues in Michigan not the corporate pirates that harmed the city for years and decades. Now, labor contracts and other parts of the city could be threatened to end. Snyder’s cronies want more privatizing or ending city services. Detroit is facing a payment of between $350 million and $400 million on toxic derivatives contracts which were sold to the city over recent years as the mayor and council struggled to avoid bankruptcy.  Wall Street firms like UBS, Bank of America, etc. collected more than $474 million from Detroit in fees for floating $3.7 billion of bonds. The about 700,000 residents of Detroit have shortages of streetlights, buses, and street repairs. Many homes are now abandoned. In 2012, the Detroit Police Department was cut by almost 12% of its officers. This and other socioeconomic issues have caused a 9% rise in the number of homicides in the city. Meanwhile, Governor Snyder wants to force Detroit to make debt service payments to the banks as a top priority (in the midst of a financial commissar imposing more measures of savage austerity). Michigan voters overthrew the existing emergency manage law or Public Act 4.  In the November 2012 election, Michigan voters nevertheless voted by 52% to 48% to strike down Snyder’s Public Act Four of 2011. Unfortunately, an attempt to write collective bargaining into the state constitution failed, most likely due to union efforts siphoned off. Then, the GOP State Attorney General invoked the older, weaker Public Act 72 of 1990 to keep the current commissars in power. Snyder passed Public Act for 36 of 2012. That act was almost identical to the law that the Michigan voters had just rejected. It has gone into effect on March 28, 2013. Rick Snyder is a reactionary, but he uses a moderate exterior. He worked in the computer software industry as cofounder of Gateway 2000. Fascism in the second decade of the 21st century is more sophisticated. Snyder ideologically believers in lowering the rate of real wage, shifting the tax burden from the super-rich to the middle class including the poor, and harm to the social safety net. Radical deregulation, harm to food stamps, unemployment benefits, and child nutrition programs are things that reactionaries want. Unlike many less clever reactionaries, Snyder supported the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler, which make up a huge part of the Michigan economy. Yet, Snyder wanted to balance the budget by cutting spending on vital services to the disadvantaged. Snyder busted unions by using the right to work law. Orr was a backer of John Kerry in 2004 and a backer of Barack Obama in 2008. Article IV of the U.S. Constitution guarantees to every state a “republican form of government.” When mayors and city councils in so much of a state are ousted from power and replaced by dictatorial rule, it is clear that republican government has ended.
We have to have equal protection under the law. Populists want a 1 percent tax on Wall Street, a debt freeze, the elimination of credit swaps including other derivatives, and a stimulus plan (where trillions of dollars are used to build up the infrastructure of Detroit and other locations to be rebuilt). The $3.6 trillion corresponds to the most recent estimate by the American Society of Civil Engineers of the expenditures necessary to restore an adequate infrastructure in this country over the next few years. We need modern bridges, energy production, public housing, schools, hospitals, telecommunications, public buildings, etc. If growth is only occurring in the private sector then a massive public works national program is needed in America. This credit stimulus can help America. We need 21st century infrastructure. We have the right to target full employment. 100 Americans live in poverty. This the highest number of folks in poverty in American history. There has been a decrease in the annual median income from  $54,841 in 2000 to $50,054 in 2011 (both in 2011 dollars). There needs to be a radical redistribution of economic and political power.

 

By Timothy