The Woolwich killing was a huge development in the world. This event outlines the evil British ruling elite exploiting the death of a one man as a means to continue their imperialist killing spree in the world. The solider named Lee Rigby was killed in Woolwich, London. This event has allowed some to cloak the lies, intrigue, and criminality done as it relates to the evil British foreign policy. After Rigby's evil and brutal murder, many media and political figures have refused to questioned the motives of his accused killers (their names are Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale). Labour MP David Lammy described “the suggestion that the murder was a direct consequence of British foreign policy” as “superficially compelling,” including criticism of “my vote in favour of the invasion of Iraq.” Even the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland made an error (as he attacked progressive figures). He refused to make a link between the events in London to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. He claims that this reality is trying to have sneak sympathy for the event. We have the right to discuss the circumstances leading to the horrific crime that Adebolajo and Adebowale were accused of. When you see the truth, you see the greater crime perpetrated by the British ruling elite. We know that the alleged killers have been known to MI5 for years or for a decade in Adebolajo's case. He was affiliated with the banned Islamist group Al-Mahaijroun. In November 2010, he was detained in Kenya while trying to travel in Somalia (some felt that he allegedly wanted to join the Islamist group called Al-Shabaab). On May 23, Abu Nusaybah, an associate of Adebolajo, was arrested immediately after an interview with BBC “Newsnight” in which he alleged that Adebolajo was tortured in Kenya and harassed by MI5, which asked him to become an informer. Evidence has been found that Britain was the architect of Adebolajo's arrest and actively protected him subsequently. According to the Daily, the SAS unit worked with MI5 as a means to snatch Adebolajo in Kenya. This was when he was ready to cross the border into Somalia. A source said, “The SAS took the lead role. The reason they were involved was because this man was deemed important.” A Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer based in Africa was “close by” as he was taken into custody by Kenya. Adebolajo was later sent back to Britain with “a Scotland Yard detective, travelling undercover,” on board. Now, Adebolajo's legal representative in Kenya said that he made a second attempt in February last year to travel to Somalia with five others. They were detained by Kenyan authorities. The UK reportedly told the Kenyan police that he was a clean man and he was sent back once more to the UK. Some sources in Africa told the Mail something. They said that they have seen Adebolajo in Kenya for a third time in November. He was in the company of the radical cleric Sheikh Hassan Makbul (on both occasions, he used a false passport). Just like in the Boston marathon bombings, we see that security services have been intimately linked with jihadist elements (as a means for British imperialism to gain more traction in the Middle East and Africa). There has been a Syrian link to this situation. A caller to the BBC's London 94.9 radio station (named Abdullah) identified Adebolajo as a man who campaigned outside of a community center recently in Plumstead, London. He wanted the youth to go and fight in Syria. Abdullah explained, “We may not have to go there because their soldiers are here,” before adding, “Success is closer than you think.” William Hague in April acknowledged reports that more than 100 Britons were among the 600 plus Europeans that have gone to fight in Syria with groups linked to Al-Qaeda (like the Al Nusra Front). Hague wrote a letter to MPs that such groups are a danger since they will try to carry out attacks against Western interests in the West now or in the future. Hague wanted to lift the EU's arms embargo in Syria as a means to close down the “uncontested space” presently filled by fundamentalists with supposedly “moderate” forces armed by the Western powers. Yet, Hague understands that the West (like the EU, the Brits, America) including the Middle Eastern allies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding the sectarian insurgency. The insurgency is heavily ruled by Islamist groups that the West has cultivated for years. The West want regime change in Syria as a way for them to get the region’s oil reserves in a strategic power grab. The EU embargo was lifted as result from the campaign from the UK and France on May 28. This will cause more atrocities in Syria via jihadists as terror squads (on the behalf of London, Washington, and Paris). In the UK, reactionaries are exploiting these events as a means to create even harsher repressive policies domestically. Prime Minister David Cameron has created an anti-terror task force as a means to propose measures to tackle "political extremism." This force includes the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, and the Director General of MI5 Andrew Parker. The government of the UK now is trying to reintroduce legislation that makes telecom companies to record the time, duration, originator, and recipient of all emails, phone calls, messages on social media, webmail and Internet voice calls made in the UK. The murder of Lee Rigby has been exploited as a means for the enemy to continue their imperialist and colonialist adventures overseas. Political life in Britain and globally has been harmed by laws that violate human civil liberties. The leaders of financial power want to get the oil, gas, and mineral resources of the Earth via wars. Now, we are paying trillions of dollars for these evil wars and they cost our social programs at home. The ruling class is just as much responsible for the murder of the soldier as the real murderers are. They are the ones who orchestrate terrorism globally.
We know that self-defense is a God given right. Its history has been long. Folks from across the political spectrum have agreed with this concept as well. Tyrants then and now wanted to use stricter anti-gun laws while the state has a monopoly of the use of organized force. When the state has a monopoly of force, bad things happen historically. We know of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre. There was an FBI informer that led the Klan/Nazi fascists to the site of protesting leftist civil rights workers and labor organizers. The fascists killed 5 progressive protesters. The FBI informer and an agent of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms showed the racists on how to use and transport the semiautomatic weapons. We know about the terrorist acts done against the MOVE commune. Ironically, the African American then mayor of Philadelphia Wilson Goode allowed cops and FBI agents in 1985 to destroy the MOVE commune literally. The cops utilized 10,000 rounds in 90 minutes, using fully automatic M-16s and M-60 machine guns, and incinerated eleven black people, including five children, in a fire ignited by C-4 plastic explosive provided by the FBI. You will notice that the anti-gun activists will never advocate disarmament of the police when police terrorism and police brutality is in epidemic levels today (not just decades ago). Cops get off so much that it is a common occurrence. Total pacifism in an imperfect society is fantasy. Ironically, the same suburban upper class lecturing on pacifism live in their homes armed to the teeth. So, do we believe that the state should have a monopoly of arms? The answer is a resounding no. The mainstream capitalist state has a monopoly of armed force as a means to maintain their rule indeed. The history of radical anti-gun measures has been to disarm populations globally, especially if they seek social change amidst injustices. The state responded to the people seeking economic or social changes by instituting laws that violated human civil liberties including the right of self-defense. Regardless of the errors of the American colonialists, they refused to give up their arms to the British imperialists when the British redcoats via British General Thomas Gage wanted them to thrown down their arms and disperse (according to the research from Stephen P. Halbrook. The concept of self-defense existed in the four corners of the Earth. It existed in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, Australia, and Europe (even in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 after the English revolution). The 18th century Blackstone's Commentaries relate to English Common Law outlines the right of human beings to defend themselves from tyrannical agencies. It is true that some exploited the Second Amendment as a means to suppress the rights of others like black Americans, but the right of self-defense is not immoral at all. Now, racism is linked to radical anti-gun measures in history. It was the racist Chief Justice Taney that refused to give black Americans the right to keep and carry arms wherever they went to. Frederick Douglas (an ex-slave and abolitionist) believed that a man has the right to use self-defense against agents of slaveholders hunting them down. Now, the reactionary Black Codes of the 1800's were made to deprive black Americans the right to have ownership of arms. An 1865 Florida statute, for instance, made it unlawful for “any Negro” to possess “firearms or ammunition of any kind,” the penalty for violation being the pillory and the whip. In response, the federal government’s Freedmen’s Bureau widely distributed circulars which read in part, “All men, without distinction of color, have the right to keep and bear arms to defend their homes, families or themselves.” The racist, private Ku Klux Klan wanted to disarm blacks and harm communities. The elite betrayed the promise of black liberation via the Compromise of 1877. Union troops left the South after the compromise. This allowed the Southern aristocrats to continue Jim Crow for another more than eight decades. Such anti-gun laws in the South that harmed the rights of African Americans existed in South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, etc. New York State’s Sullivan Law, which makes it illegal to carry a pistol for self-defense in some cases, unless you’re one of a handful of well-connected people who can get a license to “carry” from the police department, people like real estate mogul Donald Trump and New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger. Even the great Sister Ida B. Wells wanted a rifle in every black home as a means to protect black human beings from lynching. In 1965, the New York City Council passed a bill especially to keep Malcolm X from carrying a carbine for his protection; he was assassinated shortly afterward. In 1967, the California legislature banned the carrying of a loaded gun after a demonstration by the Black Panthers, who were legally carrying guns, at the state capitol in Sacramento. The Panthers had been patrolling the Oakland ghetto, where police terror was rampant. Having a gun is no smoking gun to solve all problems, but having one legitimately is not immoral. The war on Drugs, mandatory sentencing, the abolition of parole in some cases, and restrictions of human rights increased the U.S. incarceration rate and harmed communities. These acts were not reasonable solutions to our issues at all.
You can never really talk about Caribbean culture without discussing about the Caribbean cuisine. The Caribbean cuisine is made up of numerous cultures like African, Native American, East Indian, and Chinese cuisine influences. The cuisine has a great fusion. There is the local version of the Caribbean goat stew as being the official national dish of Montserrat. It is one of the signature dishes of St. Kitts and Nevis. Ackee and salt fish are popular dishes that are found in Jamaica. In Jamaica, human beings love to eat curry goat, fired dumplings, and steamed cabbage. There is the food of rice and beans (or pigeon peas or kidney beans). African, Indian, British, French, Spanish, and Chinese influence relate to Jamaican cuisine. Jerk is style of cooking that is famous in Jamaica. It is when the meat is dry rubbed or wet marinated with a very hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. It is found in the seasoning of pork and chicken hence the famous phrase of jerk chicken. Jerk spice is used on fish, shrimp, shellfish, beef, sausage, lamb, and tofu. Jerk seasoning is found in allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers (which is similar in heat to the habanero pepper). There are other ingredients in jerk food. They include cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme, garlic, and salt. Jamaican jerk cause comes from African sources. In the Western Hemisphere, jerk sauce was modified to fit new cultures. Jerk cooking is found all over the world beyond just the Caribbean. Restaurants sell jerk chicken in Canada, the UK, and the States (my little brother eat jerk chicken before). Bush tea is a famous herbal tea in the Virgin Islands. Pate in the Virgin Islands was fried dough filled with numerous meats (like beef, chicken, or salt fish stuffed inside a popular snack). There are numerous fruits consumed locally in the Virgin Islands. In the Virgin Islands, human beings consume sugar apple, mango, papaya, sour sop, genip, sea grapes, tamarind (that can be made into a sweet stew or rolled in sweet balls), and goose berries. Goose berries are small green sour fruit, which is smaller than a grape. These fruits are mainly stewed together with sugar for a sweet snack. Du riz a pois or Diri ak Pwa is a rice and beans dish from Haiti. Guavas juice, grapefruit juice, mango juice, and along with other juices (like orange juice, granadilla juice, and passion fruit) are popular in Haiti. Frescos are sweet deserts that Haitian people like as well. It is made up of mostly fruit syrup. The syrup is thick and very sweet. Sweet vendors sell frescos all of the time. African, France, Taino, and Spanish culinary influence make up the major Haitian cuisine. Bajan cuisine is made up of an unique, strong blend of foods. It has African, Indian, and British influences. The national dish of Barbados is Cou-Cou and Flying Fish. Cou-cou is made up of cornmeal (or corn flour) and okra. It is found all over the Caribbean. It came from African ancestry when slaves used it as a regular meal when they were brought to Barbados from Africa. Flying fish is known as a complement to cou-cou. Flying fish is either fried or steam in Barbados. There is corned beef or just stew beef used with cou-cou as well. Traditionally, cou-cou is served on Fridays at homes across Barbados and local food establishments. Fungi is the name for cou-cou when it is cooked without okra.
Puerto Rico is one of the most important nations of Latin America. Puerto Ricans live everywhere including where I live at in Virginia. Historically, Puerto Rico has been suffering under colonization under various powers including the American Empire. It was a colony of the Spanish Empire for than 400 years. Then, the Spanish-American War of 1898 came about. America accused Spain of bombing the USS Maine. America defeated Spain. The good news was that Puerto Rico was freed from Spanish oppression. The bad news was that the United States declared Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Guam as its territories. It was during the Spanish-American war on July 25, 1898 with the United States Navy landing at Guanica. The invasion was led by General Nelson A. Miles. When Spain lost the war, it ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to the United States under the Treaty of Paris for $20 million dollars. Spain later relinquished its political power over Cuba. Cuba gained its independence from the United States on May 20, 1902. From 1898 to 1900, Puerto Rico was ruled by four consecutive US military dictatorships. The governors and other officials in the Puerto Rican government were all appointed by the President of the United States. The U.S. government wanted to bring their American style "democracy" to Puerto Rico with military governors. We know what their version of democracy was all about indeed. These governors were involved in the massacres during the Native American wars in North America. The first U.S. installed governor was General Nelson A. Miles, who fought in the American Civil War, the American Indian wars, and the Spanish-American War. General Miles led the war campaign against Geronimo and the Apaches. Soon, General Miles' troops negotiated with Geronimo and the Apaches to go to a Florida reservation with a promise to return to their native lands. The promise never occurred, because the U.S. government planned to keep the Apaches in the reservations. The U.S. government appointed Major General John R. Brooke followed by Major General Guy Vernon Henry; both took part in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Then Major General George Whitfield Davies, a Civil War veteran was also appointed governor. All of them ruled Puerto Rico as a military dictatorship. The Foraker Act of 1900 allowed Puerto Rico a limited civilian popular government that included U.S. appointed and first civilian governor Charles Herbert Allen. The government had an executive council with more than 11 members, the House of Representatives; a judicial system modeled after the U.S. judicial system, a non-voting resident commissioner in Congress, and a United States District in Puerto Rico. The U.S. government appointed all of the executive council, the Supreme Court, the Chief of Police, etc. Voting rights were limited to those who could read and write and paid taxes. The Foraker Act was a law intended for the U.S. government to rule Puerto Rico politically. In 1917, the Jones-Shafrot Act was passed, so that Puerto Ricans would become American citizens which allowed the U.S. government to draft Puerto Ricans for World War I. The Jones Act of 1917 paved the way for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It was eventually signed into law that allowed for a democratic referendum that would allow Puerto Ricans to draft their own constitution if they desired with congressional approval. The law led Puerto Rico into “Commonwealth” status written by then resident commissioner Luis Munoz Marin himself, “The Architect of the Commonwealth.” In an article titled “Let Puerto Rico Decide How To End Its Colony Status” by Rosalinda Dejesus quoted United States Secretary of the Interior when he said: “The bill (to permit Puerto Rico to write its own constitution) merely authorizes the people of Puerto Rico to adopt their own constitution and to organize a local government…The bill under consideration would not change Puerto Rico’s political, social, and economic relationship to the United States.” Some accuse the Public Law 600 as a tool to continue Puerto Rico's colonial status by the Nationalist Party. Many uprisings have occurred in Puerto Rico because of this and other reasons. There are numerous political parties in Puerto Rico. Public Law 600 has been filled with controversy. The Statehood party was divided on the issue and the Socialists supported Public Law 600. Commonwealth status is still subject to U.S. Federal Law. The Commonwealth status became law on the anniversary of the U.S. invasion on July 25, 1952. Not only Commonwealth status became law which led Puerto Rico to become more dependent on the U.S. government. It became an area still ruled heavily by America. Still, Puerto Rico has a great history and great culture indeed. There is no question about it.
Kwame Ture was a revolutionary figure. His usage of Black Power was not just about attacking tokenism, liberal establishment patronage, and unconditional nonviolence. It was a critique of the established order and mainstream capitalism as well. For you have to look at both race and class as a means to see the bigger picture on how the world works economically and politically. Kwame Ture inspired may black human beings in the Jim Crow South and the ghettos of the North. Kwame Ture did not want Black Power to be some black wing of the Democratic Party, because he rejected the Democratic Party after its treatment of African Americans in the South. This doesn't mean that he was a Republican either because we all know what the Republicans are all about. Enough said. That is why many sincere black leaders rejected the Republicans rightfully, but allied with mainstream bourgeois Democratic Party politics (as a means to get some concessions). Ultimately, a concession benefits the enemy since the enemy administers it. In our time, we still have imperialism and militarization of society domestically. When you become older while living in the Earth, you see that real change never comes within a system that is immoral and corrupt. Change can only come by ending that wicked system and creating a better system which can benefit all of the people. At the end of the day, it is all about the people. It is important to realize that since the Maafa began, black brothers and black sisters used arms to fight for their freedom. There is nothing wrong or sinful to use arms to fight for freedom as long as innocent human beings are never harmed with arms at all. Kwame Ture was a man. We should use his legacy as inspiration to carry forward with our lives. The threats are still here against our people. The battle is not over yet, but we should continue to fight and struggle for freedom completely.
By Timothy
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