Pages

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Weekend News


 

There are citizens in Canada complaining about their guns being confiscated. They are saying that the seizure of guns is something right out of Nazi Germany. Canadian Mounties are exploiting a flood to get folks' guns. The flood waters came in the town of High River in Calgary. Canada's Royal Mounted Police seized firearms from the homes of evacuated residents in exploiting the existence of rising waters. On Thursday, according to the Calgary Herald, the RCMP confiscated a “substantial amount” of firearms under the pretext of controlling the weapons and storing them for safekeeping. "We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are,” said Sgt. Brian Topham told the newspaper. Residents are outraged by this wrong, heavy handed measure.  “I find that absolutely incredible that they have the right to go into a person’s belongings out of their home,” said resident Brenda Lackey. “When people find out about this there’s going to be untold hell to pay.” “It’s just like Nazi Germany, just taking orders,” another resident yelled as the Mounties prevented residents from entering the town south of Calgary. “This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms,” another resident, Charles Timpano, said as he pointed at a group of Mounties blockading the town. This action made by the Canadian police is similar or reminiscent to the brazen act of gun confiscation occurring in New Orleans. This came after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the Gulf Coast region in 2005. On September 8, 2005, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass ordered local police, the U.S. Army National Guard soldiers, and Deputy U.S. Marshals to confiscate all civilian held firearms.  “No one will be able to be armed,” Compass declared. “Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.” Confiscation occurred without court-issued warrants and often with excessive force by police. During the whole event, there was a police brutality case on video. It was when a 58 year old New Orleans resident named Patricia Konie was physically assaulted and arrested for refusing to surrender an old revolver to the police who had entered her home in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The woman's shoulder was fractured by the police in the incident. We know the history of the Second Amendment. Yet, the concept of the natural right of self-defense is a paramount right. Human beings have the right to own firearms legally. In many times of history, some in the government want to exploit a crisis as a means to disarm the populace. This recent incident in Canada proves that point conclusively. I do not believe that the NSA spying scandal can wait, because innocent human beings' liberties have been violated via the NSA scandal. Also, it is wrong to see the White House to send weapons to Al Qaeda linked terrorists, who are killing men, women, and children in Syria (on behalf of a neoliberal regime change agenda). The mercenary terrorists should have no justification of their actions at all. The secret negotiations of TPP are things that I don't agree with. Yet, this reality doesn't make me hate universal health care. This reality will never make cause me to ignore the system of white supremacy that caused more damage and evil that the President ever did. So, I will place the truth into context. I will outline strong disagreements with the White House on various issues. Yet, I will see the bigger picture of how the establishment is causing havoc internationally. Now, we know the truth. We know that we have to continue to fight for justice in the world completely.

 

The attacks on affirmative action by reactionaries are not new. It has occurred for decades. Diversity has been given a bare agreement by the Supreme Court, but they have attacked and wanted to destroy affirmative action for years and decades. The modern affirmative action system has been attacked since 35 years ago. Affirmative action was created as a means for African Americans to receive redress over oppression and discrimination. So, the establishment tries to use token diversity as an excuse to not really address the structural systems of white supremacy, poverty, and other evils harming humanity in America. The recent Supreme Court decision was about diversity in education not affirmative action. The Bakke decision in 1978 ended the so-called "quotas" for racial minorities. From that year on, public institutions have been forbidden from pursuing measureable results via program of inclusions of previously excluded classes of human beings. These views have been spoken of by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and even President Lyndon Johnson. The Court reluctantly affirmed the principle of the 2003 University of Michigan Law School decision called Grutter vs. Bollinger. That decision means that public educational institutions can claim a compelling interest in fostering diversity on campus (of using race as one factor out of many to create a diverse campus environment). So, the Supreme Court hates affirmative action so much that they want to use diversity as a way to disguise their hatred. Now, Dr. King in his 1964 book, called "Why We Can't Wait," mentioned that “compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro” – an idea that he heartily endorsed. “For it is obvious,” Dr. King wrote, “that if a man is entering the starting line in a race 300 years after another man, he first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner.”  Dr. King rightfully wanted a Bill of Rights for the disadvantaged (or give preferences for black Americans just like veterans have). How ironic that those anti-affirmative action extremists cite Dr. King as a source of their "race neutral" rants when Dr. King believed in affirmative action. President Lyndon Johnson’s historic speech to the 1965 graduating class of Howard University marked the definitive beginning of affirmative action as public policy. Johnson riffed on King’s metaphor: “You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair…. This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity – not just legal equity but human ability – not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result." Equality and compensatory treatment have harmed with Bakke. Today, we know the July 2003 decision; it allowed diversity to come about, but never as a means to address racial injustice or demand real results. After Dr. King was assassinated, many of upper middle class abandoned the movement as a means to advance corporate interests, the system of mainstream capitalism, and to be under the 2 party, corporate system (instead of advancing revolutionary solutions). Ironically, special privileges for the super-rich remains. For the rich, they have legacies, inheritances, tax breaks, corporate subsidies, some companies pay no income tax at all, etc. If the super can have all of this and they have oppressed the world for millennia, then the poor and other minorities deserve real justice as well. We will continue to fight for justice in the world completely. There is no doubt about that.

 

 

 

Glen Beck has been exposed for many years. His extremism and his proliferation of demagoguery are similar to that of Joseph McCarthy indeed. Glen Beck comes in a long line of reactionaries, and controversial figures like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Lou Dobbs. Glen Beck has been more overt on television in saying irrational comments while the others usually say some of the most hateful rhetoric on radio shows, etc. He once called the President a racist without any evidence whatsoever. He was a coward and disrespected the President's daughter and then was forced to apologize. He hates progressive change in society. He told the Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Beck said that he wants to dispose those from Guantanamo detainees by shooting them in the head. He slandered the brothers and sisters (including all human beings) that were victims of Hurricane Katrina in the most fragrantly evil terms. He wanted the victims of Hurricane Katrina to be removed from their own lands, so predatory developers could exploit their neighborhoods for profit. Ironically, some of this occurred in real life in Louisiana. Like numerous reactionaries, Glen Beck harbors an anti-immigrant mindset. It is one thing to morally disagree with illegal immigration. It is quite another for him to equate illegal immigrants collectively as carriers of diseases and activators of huge amounts of criminal activities.  Immigrants deserve human treatment and justice not slander. Glen Beck was on once on FOX News and now he has his own radio show. He recently converted to the religion of Mormonism. Back in 2010, he led a march in Washington; D.C. Glenn Beck claimed that he wanted a return to morality and sober living among all Americans. Yet, some of the speakers there and Beck advanced militarism and economic regressive philosophies. He tried to invoke Dr. King when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. completely rejected militarism in the Vietnam War. Glen Beck once hated Dr. King in that same year of early 2010. Beck rejects the legitimate ideal that we need jobs and decent housing for all Americans not some. The reality is that we have huge unemployment and only by revolutionary changes can we can see a drop in the unemployment rate. One of his biggest errors is Beck claiming that Nazism was socialism. That is a lie, because reactionaries loved the Nazis. The Nazis wanted eugenics, workers' rights were suppressed, one nation was ruled by one autocratic dictator, they allowed the privatization of the banking system in Germany, and the Nazis hated the Communists ideologically. The Nazis murdered left wing opponents including the Social Democrats by the tens of thousands. Now, we are witness more than 50 years after the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. There are those that want to ruin the Dream, but we want to reclaim and continue the Dream in our generation. The Dream is about the end of barbaric racial oppression in America and the eradication of economic injustices that plagues all Americans. It is about the existence of a just society filled with real justice and equality. It is about the challenging of society to be better. Dr. Martin Luther King talked about poverty, discrimination, war, and other legitimate topics in the world society. In a speech two months before his death, King denounced American foreign policy as a “bitter, colossal contest for supremacy.” Referring again to Vietnam, he said, “We are criminals in that war” and “have committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.” So, we do witness clearly that the Dream is about also the end of warfare and all forms of wars. Militarism and imperialism readily cause economic destruction globally and more hatreds in society. The working class deserves justice including the homeless. Today, we see many shining lights of humans fighting for truth. Likewise, we still see the establishment using their agents as a means to advance compromise, war, neoliberalism, and other evils. After 1968, the establishment used the privileged layer of the upper middle class as a means to not only ignore the interests of the poor, but to make it seem that radical progress has been made in the USA (when we know that not to be true with huge unemployment, suppression of liberties, and a war on terror). Today, we should still fight jobs, fight for a decent living, and right for social services.




One of the worse times in Hollywood was during the McCarthyism era. This during the time from the late 1940's into as late as the early 1960's in some cases. It was when there were witch hunts against those who held ideological views against the views of the establishment. The hearings from the House of Un-American Activities Committee executed harm against free expression and free thought. It gripped American society. Many movie actors and actresses were accused of being Communists. Some of their lives were ruined. Some actors were silent in the face of such tyrannical attitudes. Others were brave enough to fight against the repressive atmosphere in the time period. Witch hunts were deplorable during that time period, because whether someone was a Communist or not, human beings have the right to believe in divergent views on political, social, or economic matters. Even criticism of the current order is not immoral. The ruling class wanted to spread militarism and capitalist power in the world. McCarthyism was a huge engine whereby the ruling class could carry out their Cold War agenda. Even the AFL-CIO leadership in that era folded somewhat under the grip of McCarthyism. Major figures untouched by the blacklist, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Mann, Vincente Minnelli, Otto Preminger, Raoul Walsh, George Stevens, George Cukor and Douglas Sirk continued to direct and, in some cases, did their most important work in the 1950s. Much of Hollywood lost their next generation of film directors in the 1950's. There were many artistically great films during the 1950's indeed, but culturally America experienced Jim Crow oppression and too much of conformist outlook on life in general. McCarthyism came even back in the days of Harry Truman. It was Truman that allowed the nuclear explosions of Nagasaki and Hiroshima inside of Japan. McCarthy was a latecomer to the agenda of the Cold War since it came long before the 1950's even. Even folks from across the political spectrum admitted that excesses transpired during the McCarthyism era. Rep. Martin was a Democrat from Texas. He was the first HUAC chairman that wanted to purge so-called "reds" out of Hollywood. Dies admired the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. He supported the Ku Klux Klan and spoke at several of its rallies. This is the enemy that helped to institute the agenda of HUAC. Hamilton Fish, an ardent pro-Nazi, was a disciple of Dies. He did not want equality for blacks. Republican Rep. J. Parnell Thomas, chairman of HUAC at the time of the 1947 hearings, who helped suppress the democratic rights of the Hollywood Ten, and a pathological anti-communist. He compared the New Deal with communism. He was later jailed for fraud. Democratic Congressman and HUAC member John Rankin of Mississippi was an out-and-out fascist. He spews hate against Jewish human beings and others. J. Edgar Hoover wanted to expose Communism in Hollywood. The Hollywood Ten suffered persecution and the establishment liberals of the Americans for Democratic Action supported such witch hunts.

 

Many religious human beings including Christians (and others) are right that we need to confront the lack of love found in many human beings. That is one of the very weaknesses of a laissez faire capitalist society. Today, modern day consumers run to the global marketplace as a means to get merchandise and other objects. The human apathy can cause destruction in the world. The deal is that we should not lose our sympathy collectively for each other. If we do, then we can act irrational and that reality can cause wars and other forms of destruction in the Universe. The super-rich know that more human beings are waking up about political corruption and the neoliberal globalized system. That is why they advance more law and order including more security (as a means to control the masses and protect them from revolutionary fervor. The super-rich have access to advanced technology too). Also, Yeshua is right to say that in the end times, the love of many shall wax cold as found in Matthew 24:12. Since, humans are made up of body, soul, and spirit, then we should follow the truth. We ought to realize that we need to follow the will of the Father not the will of market forces. We should know that we should get our spirituality in order without the devouring of fleshly pleasures in an inappropriate fashion. A basic truth is that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and serve humanity in a just fashion. Greed is one concept that relates to selfishness and other evils. That is why it is common that that we love God, love human beings, and love not this world. We should continue to express generosity and humility. The enemy wants us to serve ourselves first, to get wealth and possessions in a lustful fashion, and to indulge in selfishness including other lusts of the flesh. When you look at the big picture, we see that capitalism views life as a competition, it loves consumerism, and it loves covetousness. Everything in the world is not a commodity that is made marketable. Money is not necessary for all things of life and we should not bow before the marketplace at all. For centuries, we have seen the decline of love and the increase in commerce. That is why the merchants of laissez faire capitalism like Bernard Mandeville, Adam Smith, Ludwig Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, as well as Ayn Rand (who is referred to by her biographer as "Goddess of the Market"), have all expressed their contempt for love, charity, sympathy, benevolence, or altruism. They are activists for Mammon and not for social justice indeed. Covetousness is nothing more than idolatry at the end of the day. When you have a commercialized world, love is debased in the world. When you witness the economic exploitation in the world, the Golden Rule is seen as the enemy. When I woke up about this reality, I saw the world much more clearly. The elitists want worldly comfort, luxury, and prestige at the expense of dignity of the masses of the rest of the human race. That is why we need altruism, truth, love, and justice as a means to improve our lives and redeem our souls.

 

 

By Timothy

No comments:

Post a Comment