The news is talking about Edward Swonden all of the time. He is the former NSA whistleblower. He was once the former CIA information technology employee. He revealed classified information to the public. This opened a veil on the military intelligence spying apparatus. The spying system of America operates in secrecy and in many cases violates constitutional rights. He is in Hong Kong right now. The authorities from the States want to retrieve him for felony charges. Members from both Democrats and Republicans have called him a traitor. Some pundits even want to call for his execution, which is dubious and extreme. A global manhunt is being launched against him. He is in the Hong Kong area. He gave an extensive interview with the Guardian newspaper's Glenn Greenwald. “I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me,” he told Greenwald, adding he hoped that by coming out it would be “harder for them to get dirty.” In his interview with Greenwald, Snowden spoke powerfully and eloquently of the “architecture of oppression” that goes beyond even that which has been revealed in the documents released so far. We know that the establishment abhors true democratic values, which is why they instituted the oppressive Big Brother police state in the first place. Tons of Americans though believe in authentic liberty and want the actions of the NSA to be curtailed and ended. The leaks signify that we have a long way to go in having true freedom among humanity. Snowden's actions are the fruit of a corrupt system. Real changes come by struggle among all liberty loving peoples not just by workers. The plutocracy uses financially regressive actions not only to control the social actions of the people. They use it as a means to maintain their power. Viewing every citizen as a potential enemy or terrorist under certain circumstances is the essence of the Patriot Act and other unjust laws. I don't follow unjust laws at all. The monitoring of every American's personal lives can lead into intimidation and blackmail. As Snowden noted, after the state has gathered, on a permanent basis, data from everyone, “You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with.” The government can construct a detailed social and political profile of nearly every individual in the United States. According to the “Boundless Informant” data-mining tool, some 97 billion pieces of intelligence were gathered worldwide from one NSA spying program in March 2013 alone. In addition to the 3 billion pieces of intelligence from within the US, there were 14 billion from Iran, 13.5 billion from Pakistan, 12.7 billion from Jordan, 7.6 billion from Egypt, 6.3 billion from India, and 3 billion from Europe. The oligarchs rule the political establishment (found in the White House, political parties, the courts, the police, etc.). I cannot defend this current spying program. Even Private Bradley Manning is facing life in prison for revealing to the world of the crimes of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The documents from Manning have been published by Julian Assange. These spying programs are carried out in secret precisely because the ruling class knows it lacks a broad base of support. As Snowden noted in his interview, the documents reveal that “the NSA [and other government officials] routinely lie in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America.” The establishment and the government have been lying about this and other issues for a long time. Mass struggle can only change things. William Binney said that after 9/11, the White House, the NSA, and the CIA decided to take wraps off and begin collecting on U.S. citizens. He also said the following: "...They took the system I built to spy on other countries and they turned it against you...This is something the KGB, the Stazi or the Gestapo would have LOVED to have had. Just because this is a democracy doesn’t mean we will stay that way..." He is right and he said this in 2012. Binney was said to be one of the best code breakers ever. He admits they can turn your cell phone on and listen to you while it sits in your pocket or your purse. He explains that they targeted everyone and everything. Video was released in August of 2012. Binney's real testimony refutes the lies from the administration that the government is not spying on citizens intensively. The war on terrorism is a total, unadulterated scheme as a means to store information on as many human beings as possible among other duties. The actions of the NSA are even in violation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights: "...No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks..."Snowden should be evaluated like anyone else. He said that he dropped out of high school, came into the Special Forces (when you have to master numerous system to be in the Special Forces), the CIA, and the NSA in a short span of time. He told the fantastic clam to Glenn that he could have brought the entire NSA down by tomorrow, which is farfetched to say the least. The massive NSA, comprised of some very smart people who actually did finish high school and some even went to college at places like MIT and Harvard and Yale (this massive, well-funded over funded intelligence Juggernaut) could be brought down by a guy with a GED overnight. It is not feasible at all. Folks are researching his records to see if his story is for real. Others have said that white privilege could influence on how he gain so much access to Big Brother's secrets since let's keep it real here. If a Brother had the exact story of Snowden, he would not have access to that many secrets at all. So, is Snowden a hero? I do not consider him to be a traitor, but his story should be investigated more. He is more like the outcome of the corruption in society. He should not be unjustly harmed. The White House is wrong on this issue. The reason is that we should have more transparency about such spying programs and illegal spying against Americans has continued in our time. When you have unjust spying in the United States by the government, then you will see folks like Snowden come about. You reap what you sow. We should continue to fight for the protection of our civil liberties and constitutional rights. We should oppose evil spying programs and we should not let the oligarchs control every aspect of our society at all.
There are many legitimate criticisms about the White House that we ought to respect. Even the Obamabots are wrong to have some unyielding support for all of the policies of the Presidency. Conversely, the Tea Party crowd is wrong for sometimes showing extremist views and even some of them speaking notorious slanders against the President of the United States of America. This does not mean that the White House ought to be blamed for all evils in the world. It does mean that the administration has made errors and it should be known for all of humankind. In a matter of less than 4 years, the Obama administration will be over. The major question going on now among other is how to adequately address income inequality. In the past few years, economic and racial inequality has grown. We ought to reject bourgeois identity politics and follow radical politics. Unfortunately, despite his excellent intellect, President Barack Obama has followed the path of neoliberal capitalism, military empire, and refusing to call out white supremacy explicitly. It is somber to mention these things, but the truth must be told in season and out of season as the Creator would want us to do. So, we realize that the current administration has been selected by the powers that be. The power that be allowed for high levels of homelessness, unemployment (28 percent of African Americans and 37 percent of black children are officially poor. That number is 10 percent of whites and 13 percent of white children. As high as 13 percent of black Americans are officially unemployed), and schools being closed down for good. Many reactionaries have bought guns as well. That is why the White House was utilized as a means to carry over oppression with a smiling face. The reason is that another Bush like human being in office could have signaled a real revolution by the American people. Some of Obama's actions have neutralized a great deal of the anti-war movement. I also believe that the Sister named Trojan Pam made an excellent on how the establishment put black human beings in front of some political power as a means to give white racists the excuse to falsely collectively scapegoat the black community in general (when the bigger picture is that the system of white supremacy still oppresses all of us over the course of centuries). Also, an individual is accountable for the actions he or she does, so I always believe in individual responsibility. Yet, I won't use that as an excuse to stereotype another human being that is different from me at all. I believe in equality completely. We experience worldwide imperialism. The military empire of the West is vast and extensive. There has been backlash against these evils with the Wisconsin labor rebellion. We still need environment improvement without fracking, etc. Many of the policies from the previous administration continue in our time. We now in 2013 witness efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. We see record deportations of immigrants while the reactionaries lie and say that Barack Obama wants some amnesty plan. There are the infiltration of protest organizations by feds including the illegal monitoring of them, secret kill lists, rendition, the escalating U.S. intervention in the Motherland, saber rattling against Iran, and other evil actions. There can be no refutation of these facts. Even the most virulent Obamabot can't deny this information. A White House refusing to tackle racial inequality and then talk about no excuses to a bunch of graduates from Morehouse College (these are human beings that did the right thing education wise and these folks are not criminals) is troubling for he will not say any excuses to Jewish human beings, all women, or Hispanics. He will not expose world imperialism created by white supremacy to those students in the historically black Morehouse College. When he said some stuff like “Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination," then it shows his mentality for the world to see. I think he won't tell no excuses to Wall Street oligarchs harming the environment or receiving record bailouts now. That is the Booker T. Washington in him not the Malcolm X in us. There has been no radical mention of the poor or poverty by this administration. It is rhetoric of transaction not the Audacity of Hope. The black bourgeois and others refuses to heavily talk about these issues. There are no excuses for the elite to practice discrimination in our society. Still, I will not follow the path of reactionaries and blame President Barack Obama for all complications of America and the world. The truth must be placed into context. Still, the black bourgeois class is acting more like the Tea Party than a real party by their reactionary, anti-poor rhetoric at times. Ironically, they love the Democrats when both parties have had a nefarious history before. The bourgeois wants to silent especially independent black dissent against word imperialism, but we will stand strong and firm for liberty. I will never advance the dogmas of militarism, empire, and class oppression at all. We see now that racial oppression, sham electoral democracy work together in the system of mainstream capitalism and imperialism. Now, we should oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership, the evil War on Drugs, and the stop and frisk policy (that harms New Yorkers day in and day out).
The history of self-defense and guns is real. I respect any sincere nonviolent person. Yet, fascists and authoritarians for thousands of years have restricted the arms of innocent human beings as a means to conquer human beings. Gun control itself is not racist. On the other hand, a radical, genocidal version of gun control has already been related to racism, oppression, and violation of the tenet of self-defense (which is a common sense right from the Creator). We know that radicals suppress the gun rights of blacks, other minorities, immigrants, union organizers, agrarian reformers, and other human beings in America including throughout the world. Even after the Civil War, some Southern states restricted the rights of agrarian workers to have sufficient gun rights. The old bigoted lie that poor, urban, and black human beings are not to be trusted with guns (except those in rural areas or the elite) is a common thread in the violation of human rights. That is why poor are not afforded the same protection or the same economic opportunities as more affluent areas. Crime is caused by poverty and socioeconomic factors not by someone's ethnic identity or their class. That is why firearms should be acquired by law abiding citizens in any community. Xenophobic hatred in the North harmed immigrants as well. As far back as 1640, there was Virginia law that restricted blacks the right to keep and bear arms. Many states in the South in the 18th and 19th centuries further forbid African Americans from owning firearms, because of the slave rebellions against oppression. The framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 argued that the issue of the right to keep and bear arms by the newly freed slaves was of vital importance. The reason was that Klan militias were killing innocent black men, women, and children in the South. In the late 1800's, states in the South restricted the gun rights of black Americans as well. The 1911 Sullivan Law came about not as a means to handle safety. It was created to deal with new immigrants in the state. It only gave the New York City Police Department the power to determine who could possess handguns. Some in that time restrict gun rights of immigrants and Italians. Many of the gun restrictions in the early 20th century existed as a result of the labor movement and the civil rights movement. Even when the Native Americans gave up their weapons and horses like the Sioux, and they were still massacred. Federal government restrictions on the sale of firearms to Native Americans were only ended as late as 1979. Many radical anti-gun laws violate human civil liberties. Even some parts of the Crime Bill of 1994 were detrimental to human rights. Clayton E. Cramer's article called, "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" talks about this history further.
Fannie Lou Hamer continued to fight for human liberation. She spoke in 1964 in the following words: “If the Freedom Democratic Party isn’t seated today, I Question America”, Fannie told the Credentials Committee. “Is this America where we have to sleep with our phones off the hooks because we be threatened daily just cause we want to register to vote to become first class citizens." She was a member of the Mississippi's official delegation to the Democratic National Convention of 1968. She was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. She continued to work in activism. She worked in grassroots level Head Start programs, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign. That campaign wanted to give the poor a better chance at life. It was about the restructuring of the current unfair society and making a guaranteed annual income including an Economic Bill of Rights as a means to crush the scourge of poverty once and for all. The whole ideal is about the poor and the dispossessed having just as much right to have equal opportunity and equal dignity as anyone else living in this Earth. The FBI and the establishment hated Dr. King for this since they believed that he went too far. Richard Nixon made a White House Conference on hunger in 1969. It had hundreds of grassroots human beings there. It was one big fraud conference against the poor according to the late journalist Samuel Yvette. The panel wanted to even have forced sterilization of any such girl giving birth out of wedlock a second time. The late brother Samuel Yette exposed the elite's targeting of the black community. Richard Nixon was a strong proponent of population control. Fannie Lou Hamer wanted freedom and she worked with the many facets of the civil rights movement. He worked with SNCC, the moderate NAACP, Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers. As Hamer once proclaimed: “Nobody’s free until everyone’s free.” She worked in believing in the sanctity of human life. She died of heart failure due to hypertension on March 14, 1977. She was 59 years old. She passed away in Mound Bayou, Mississippi and she was buried in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. Her tombstone reads one of her famous quotes, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." She was the youngest of 20 children. Her husband is named Perry Hamer. In her life, she campaigned for maternal and child health. She wanted nutrition and education programs for poor Americans of all races. She assisted the campaign of her friend, U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm. Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman who ran for President and she co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus. She worked for Jo Etha Collier, who was a richly gifted black neighbor of Hamer. Jo Etha Collier was shot by a group of resentful white men on the night of her high school graduation. Fannie Lou Hamer supported single black mothers to live a better life and helped one to go into college. She refused to scapegoat single mothers. She added: "We still love these children. And after these babies are born we are not going to disband these children from our families...I think these children have a right to live. And I think that these mothers have a right to support them in a decent way ...We are dealing with human beings." Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer always had a passion for her people and all human beings.
Reconstruction is still a very important historical event. The history of Reconstruction is not the one the movie Gone with the Wind showed. It was not Gone with the Wind fabulous. LOL. Reconstruction outlined an experience of democracy in the South. Reconstruction was a political struggle between nearly freed Black slaves in the South and the oppressor. Early Reconstruction from 1865 to 1867 was no real liberty based reality at all. Many Confederate states were admitted to the Congress with hardly any reservations at all. Many of the planter class maintained their power and privilege. They used violence and the Black Codes, which was nothing more than a continuation of the old slave system. Radical Reconstruction was advanced by numerous Radical Republicans and revolutionary African Americans. Black human beings wanted political and social equality. Many former abolitionists and Northern labor activists feared that the Johnson plan restored slavery with a new face. Northerner capitalists influenced the federal government during the Civil War. Activists and the Freeman fought for some reforms. In the period from 1867 to 1877, there were about 2,000 African Americans holding political office. There were black Senators and House of Representative in that period of time as well. Southern Blacks and poor whites voted for Radical Reconstruction governments. The South soon was more democratized in its state constitutions. There was a system of free and universal public education, penal reforms came, greater rights were given to women, and there were some public welfare institutions. This was without precedent in the South. Giving a freedman 40 acres and a mule did not pass in the South. Land reform and redistribution did not exist since some of the Northern capitalists turned against Reconstruction. The elite banks fought workers wanting an 8 hour day, farmers, and Molly Maguires (fighting for the workers in the mines). So, the ruling class in the North and South worked together in harming black liberty with their Compromise of 1877. That compromise was one of the worst events in the history of the black liberation struggle. It allowed federal troops to be withdrawn from the South. Black rights were violated by violence, intimidation, and fraud. Southern reactionaries ended Reconstruction governments and the achievements of Reconstruction. Economic oppression via sharecropping, etc. ruined the lives of workers in the South. The Dixiecrats and the Northern moderates worked together in trying to block every reform measure that came before Congress even in the 20th century. They or the Dixiecrats fought against child labor, they opposed women's suffrage, they hated income taxes on the rich, etc. They hated real labor rights and social welfare. Even today, the South offers a haven for runaway shops from the North. Reconstruction taught all of us that revolutionary social change must come mixed with political change as a means to help society. Reconstruction was a political time that was short-lived, but its lessons can assist us in our current fight to make a brighter tomorrow for all God's Creation.
By Timothy
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