Weekend News

 

 

 

 

It is not a secret that much of the pharmaceutical companies are corrupt and they are making about 280 million dollars a year in the USA. 70 percent of all Americans alone rely on their drugs. The culture of a pill for every problem has not been good for us in general. History has shown us that an over reliance on pill drugs have done a number in the world. In America, the number of human beings hooked on legal drugs dwarfs the number of people hooked on illegal drugs. There are more people killed by legal drugs than illegal drugs. Just because a drug is classified as legal, doesn't mean that it is safe. The big pharmaceutical companies with aid from some in the federal government advance this agenda. Some prescription painkillers are some of the most additive drugs in the planet. They kill more Americans every year than heroin and cocaine combined. Many antidepressants are turning millions of Americans into acting like zombies. Some of such drugs can increase the risk of suicide if utilized in an improper fashion. Big Pharma wants huge profits indeed. We know many signs and evidences that show the truth that pharmaceutical companies are reaping huge profits at the expense of human lives. The Mayo Clinic (as presented by a study made by them) found that 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug. There is about 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs. According to the CDC, 9 out of 10 Americans that are at least 60 years of age say that they have n taken at least one prescription drug within the last month. The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies combined rake in about 85 billion dollars in profits in 2012 (and Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs).  According to AlterNet, last year: “11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year." Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than children in Europe are. A Government Accountability Office report found that about one in three foster children in America are on at least one psychiatric drug. All of those antidepressants don’t seem to be working too well.  The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents. In the United States of America, you are 64 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than you are by a gun. This is why a lot of Patriots and a lot of activists are fighting against Monsanto, against non-labeled GMOs, etc. Now, with all of that money we spend, we are still not the healthiest people in the world. Our life expectancy is higher other nations. Yet, we have very high rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.  The deal is that our health care system is dominated by Big Pharma and corporate interests. That is why we need more health freedom, advance universal health care, avoid GMOs including other poisons, and we should have real natural health reforms. We need collective solutions and individual ones as well. These individuals ones including the reality that we need to exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, drink a lot of good quality water, get organic foods, get the appropriate vitamins and nutritional supplements, and stimulate our minds intellectually (with puzzles, games, writing, helping society in programs, and being active in our communities). Other human beings want a more balanced diet, some are going vegan, and some are going raw foods. Do you, yet remember to make sure that you make great health choices.

 

 

President Barack Obama came to make a historic speech recently in Berlin. He was the first American President to speak from the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate. It was once Stalinist controlled East Berlin. The President wanted to make a reference to the open societies that respect the sanctity of the individual over oppressive political systems. He tried his best to defend the exposed surveillance network. This massive and illegal program dwarfs the evil spying apparatus of the old Stasi secret police. He declared that the National Security Agency or the NSA programs (that seize the phone records of all Americans and tap into electronic communications of people all over the world) are bound by the rule of law. He claims that this program doesn't target the communications of ordinary persons. LOL. Folks can believe that if they want to. The truth is that illegal spying by the FBI and NSA has occurred for decades. Obama tried to invoke peace and tolerance, but when you aid Islamist militias in Syria, then that seems to make that point moot. These rebels are highly intolerant and want to murder secularism in Syria as a means to institute some authoritarian, theocratic state in Syria (which violates human liberties ironically enough). Justice is not about a drone assassination program. It is about defeat of white supremacy once and for all point blank period. German Chancellor Merkel sat next to President Barack Obama. She is heading up the mass unemployment causing and poverty causing austerity agenda. This agenda is harming Greece and other European nations. The President said that widening inequality is an insult and he understands the pain of the youth, who are unemployed. Ironically, we see war, bank bailouts, social cuts, and attacks on democratic rights all over the world not just inside of the States. Some of the reactionary policies from the Bush administration exist in the Obama administration. This is different from the hope and change words. The speech that President Barack Obama gave in Berlin was in front of 4,000 human beings. There was a virtual lockdown of much of Berlin. Five years ago, Obama spoke to about 200,000 human beings, most of whom were young. The Tiergarten area was the location of the speech. Many Europeans want to have reassurance that the President is for them (since they are sensitive about the NSA controversy). Yet, the threat of imperialism is among us. We must continue to fight for the poor and workers irrespective of who is in the White House. The ruling class will not give up militarism. It is hard for America to give up all of its nuclear weapons when it has hundreds of bases globally in a large number of countries worldwide. There are also anti-ballistic missiles sent by the West to Eastern European countries, which angers Russia. In essence America wants dominance in Asia, Europe, Africa, and throughout the Earth. The Russia/China hegemony wants power too. The negotiations for nuclear reduction will be extremely hard to say the least. Obama talked about reducing nuclear weapons in negotiations with other nations like Russia, but that will be difficult. Class is a big factor in global politics. It is not just class though, regardless of what socialists say. The issues of race, gender, and other backgrounds are related to politics as well and they ought to be discussed. We have to study history and politics as a means to get a tolerable framework on how to go forward in life.

 

Africa is important to study among all humankind. It is part of our heritage and it is the location of the origin of all human life. Advanced civilizations existed in Africa then and now. We know of black inventors in the world. I think we should be reminded on the beauty of Africa, because it is our heritage and the heritage succinctly of the whole world. When we learn the truth, it can decrease tensions among all of the sectors of the human race. We know our heritage and the Brothers and the Sisters understand our blood. In ancient Egypt, there were black human beings. In ancient Nubia, there were black men, women, and children using alphabets and developing other excellent components of human civilization. Ancient Nubia had pyramids, palaces, and other architectural feats including a complex form of governmental infrastructure. The famous Nubian King Taharqa was a very skilled military tactician that even conquered ancient Egypt for a while. In ancient Aksum, we see great wealth, great trade, and having castles. We see that ancient Aksum has its own written language. Ancient Ghana was a rich and power gold kingdom. Great morality and prosperity existed in the Mali Kingdom. Songhai was an Empire that was larger than Mali with its scholarly culture including its complex government. Songhai had tons of brothers and sisters with wit, civility, and industry. A provincial government with an advanced system of checks and balances made up the ancient civilization of the Kongo. We know the great stone structures that are found in Zimbabwe including the growth of the Swahili language inside of the Motherland of Mama Afrika. Today, we find great African scholars, teachers, lawyers, political leaders, athletes, scientists, engineers, etc. When I mean African, I mean all of us of black African descent from Lagos to New York City, NYC. As Kwame Ture eloquently mentioned before, we are all Africans no matter where we live on this Earth. I was born in America many years ago, but I am still an African. I am of Black African descent. I am a black man. When you get older, I see many of our people expressing that tie to Africa. That is why anyone who is anti-Africa, is an enemy point blank period. We know that Africa has great, unique fauna and flora. We know that very beautiful, intelligent, socially inquisitive human beings live in Africa too. It is our job to realize our African ties and to help out our communities in legitimate means. The battle is not over. The struggle continues, but if we do what is right, then the keys to the Kingdom will be in our hands. Everything will be all gravy with determined effort, keen insight, faith, and intrepid action. One great principle is known though. We have known this all of our lives. We have used this principle in our valleys and our greatest joys as a means to affirm our heritage. This principle can move mountains, stir movements, and to express our gratitude to our Creator that gave us life. This glorious principle is found in music, Nature, history, and in the human race too. It is found in the Universe. The principle is Black is Beautiful.

 

The NSA issue is important to debate and discuss. The Bush and Obama administrations try to justify the mass surveillance programs by saying that it relates to 9/11. Both administrations claim that they could of caught one of the 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego if they could have spied on phone calls on American soil. We know that claim to be completely false. The NSA has sweeping recordings of phone call records. The U.S. claimed that NSA spying could stop Khalid al Mihdhar to not be involved in the 911 attacks. Vice President Dick Cheney made the same argument. The Bush administration utilized the same argument as a means to justify their NSA warrantless wiretapping program. An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to Mihdhar and another 9/11 hijacker in 2000. The Investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry found that an FBI informant hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. When the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright and hid him in an unknown location. A high level FBI official stated that blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House.  The informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers, is important. The NY Times reported that Senator Bob Graham (the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee) accused the White House of covering up evidence. The FBI informant could have apprehended the hijackers without a mass surveillance. The NSA did actually intercept Mihdhar's phone calls before 9/11. The NSA tapped top Al-Qaeda operatives' phone calls outside the U.S. They did it inside of America according to NSA expert James Bamford. The NSA recorded all of these phone calls between al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego and a high-level Al Qaeda operations base in Yemen. This was done 2 years before 9/11. The CIA knew that al-Mihdhar had visas for Malaysia and the U.S. Even top NSA whistleblower William Binney – a highly-credible 32-year NSA veteran with the title of senior technical director, who headed the agency’s digital data gathering program (featured in a New York Times documentary, and the source for much of what we know about NSA spying) said something. He admitted that the NSA had data on hijackers before 9/11. He also said the following: "...And, Prism did not start until 2007. But they could get the data from the “Upstream” collection. This is the Mark Klein documentation of Narus equipment in the NSA room in San Francisco and probably other places in the lower 48. They did not need Prism to discover that. Prism only supplemented the “Upstream” material starting in 2007 according to the slide..." Before 9/11, there has been widespread spying on Americans. Foreign intelligence communities in Europe and Israel knew of the hijackers' movements before 9/11. So, the NSA and the FBI were each independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind’s phone calls. 9/11 was a totally foreseeable event, which is why the Western establishment exploited the attacks as a means to spread imperialism in the world (in the war on terror). Even the token 9/11 Commission report admitted that there were the missed opportunities as it relates to the 9/11 attacks. Mihdhar was on the intelligence community’s radar at least as early as 1999. That’s when the NSA had picked up communications from a “terrorist facility” in the Mideast suggesting that members of an “operational cadre” were planning to travel to Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, according to the commission report. The NSA had the technical ability and power to intercept calls between Mihdhar and Yemen before 9/11 (It did so). So, just because you have massive surveillance in society, doesn't mean that the USA will be completely safe. Mass surveillance can interfere with catching bad guys. The global war on terror continues unabated. We have the Supreme Court making the bad Citizens United decision. That means that the court gives the protections of person-hood for the oligarch’s constructs (corporations) provides them with rights and freedoms no longer granted to us. There is also the evil 80 billion dollar a month bailouts that continue to make a select few of the Wall Street financial entities to not to be held truly accountable of their actions. The only solutions to this problem are check and balances, maintaining our civil liberties, real negotiation, and other revolutionary changes in society.

 

The Keystone XL pipeline is about enriching the oil giants. It can threaten water and environmental areas also from oil spills. The Keystone is an export pipeline that would transport toxic tar sands Alberta down to a tax free zone in Texas and out to foreign markets. That means that the EU, China, and Latin America get the oil while the foreign owned oil companies get the profits. North Americans are left cleaning up the oil spills and shouldering the pollution burden (from extracting and refining the dirty tar sands). The issue is complicated. You have to deal with data from the U.S. and global oil markets to get a further gauge of the issue. The Texas refineries processing the diluted bitumen is apparent. There is the commitment of oil companies to sell their product for the best price internationally. Now, the proponents of this pipeline claim that Keystone XL offers greater energy security and economic growth, but just not in America. The pipeline can give more energy security to Europe, China, and Latin America since there is a massive fuel pipeline they can tap (as long they're willing to pay). Oil companies can have a new bounty of profit to play with the pipeline. The refineries can be found in a foreign trade zone. There is the promise of new jobs, but the estimates mention that there will only be about 35 permanent jobs over the long term. There is a short term influx of cash from constructing the pipeline. Very little maintenance can come when the pipelines are built. The White House will decide whether it wants to enrich big oil companies that are already the wealthiest companies in the world, for the long-term pay off of 35 permanent jobs and the oil spills that will inevitably occur. It can also not approve of this plan too. The XL Pipeline can harm American public health. It can cause refinery pollution, threats to water supplies from oil spills, and there are implications that tar sands expansion has for global climate disruption. We do not need this plan at all. Valero, Motiva, Phillips 66, Total, and LyondellBasell are the five companies that have plans to take heavy crude from Keystone XL. So, the pipeline is an export pipeline that could send oil heavily overseas.  That is why more and more Americans seek alternatives to the Republicans and the Democrats as Margaret Kimberley have mentioned. For even the White House has been influenced by corporate interests. The system of mainstream capitalism is near the end. There are so many human beings that the oligarchs can exploit and so much products that can be commercialized. The lie of the mainstream system rewards the super-rich. Whereas, the elite try to extract wealth from the world's people of color illegally masquerading as economic development and freedom. It is not freedom to bomb civilian targets. It not a part of freedom to kill folks and use mass exploitation and claim that is really great. It is not a part of the momentous, great concept of freedom to aid murderous theocrats. American Exceptionalism is nothing more than a slick form of imperialism and consumerism. A thief is a thief and the modern American state has been created by the theft of millions of square miles of the Americas (the enemy even broke treaties among the Native Americans as a justification for them to execute a policy of extermination. Most of the Native Americans died from that evil, wicked policy). Western imperialism for centuries is all about thievery, genocide, and a superiority complex possessed by the enemy. We know who the enemy is. We have to always remember Africa since Africa is our home. Africaness is in our consciousness and in our soul. We can never support a racist Empire. I do not want the extension of the Empire. I am working for the defeat of the American Empire via all legitimate means necessary and for America to reach for its true potential (as I wish for all nations of the world). We must permanently love Africa and love our heritage. I wish for the defeat of poverty, for the end of neo colonialism, for the defeat of imperialism, and for the defeat of mainstream laissez faire capitalism completely. We must be connected with Africa completely. We will continue to fight for justice.

 

By Timothy