The George Zimmerman trial has been a fast one. We know more about the case than in the previous weeks and months about the case including the murder of Trayvon Martin. The reactionaries are hypocritical in the case. They want Zimmerman to be innocent. The mistreatment of black people is a common occurrence and we should stand up for justice everywhere in the world. When our people lived in Rosewood, Florida, it was a successful community. It was a thriving town with banks, grocery stores, funeral homes, churches, and other forms of infrastructure. Later, racists burned the town down and murdered many of the black residents. This proves that when we have our own infrastructure we can be successful and it shows the vicious nature of white supremacists. Zimmerman stalked an unarmed young black teenage with a 9mm. Yet, reactionaries and racists throughout the Internet (and in other places) have laughed about Martin's death. They have shown disturbing comments in slandering the family of Trayvon Martin including the Sister Rachel. These reactionaries have ridiculed Martin's grieving parents. This hate is common for certain people. The prosecution made great accomplishments and errors. They, during the end of the trial, came back stronger than in the beginning of the case. The good news is that Trayvon Martin's family can use a civil case to get restitution for George Zimmerman's evil, criminal, and unjust act. The defense wants us to ignore Trayvon Martin's attack on a police officer or receiving a restraining order for domestic violence. These actions are hugely worse than what Trayvon Martin ever did at all in his life. Trayvon Martin has been found to have no blood in his hands when the defense claimed that he pounded Zimmerman's head into the concrete. The testimony has shown that there was no Zimmerman DNA found on Trayvon Martin's hands, under nails, etc. There was no Zimmerman DNA found in Trayvon Martin's sleeves too. One Prosecutor stated in closing that, "Trayvon Martin has NONE of Zimmerman's BLOOD on HIM, but Zimmerman will ALWAYS have Trayvon's BLOOD on HIM." We know that George Zimmerman's mother is from Peru. His father was an ex-magistrate. The lead homicide investigator even recommended that George Zimmerman should be arrested and charged with 1st degree voluntary man slaughter. Yet, he was overruled by the now discredited DA and ex-police chief. One lead investigator said during the trial that George Zimmerman expressed spite and ill will when dealing with Trayvon Martin. His testimony is very crucial in the trial. Zimmerman acted a faux police officer. Chris Serino said that Zimmerman targeted the young teenager Trayvon Martin. The entire case consists of a puzzle with various pieces. What we have now is numerous witnesses giving testimony that contradicts some of the words that Zimmerman voluntarily gave to authorities. The slander of Rachel (beyond fair interpretation of her witness stand performance) by ignorant human beings in the celebrity world or otherwise has been disgraceful. Other witnesses in the trial mentioned that Zimmerman exaggerated the extent of his injuries as well. At the end of the day, Trayvon Martin had every right to walk in the vicinity and he was murdered. Dr. Valerie Rao, a Jacksonville-based medical examiner who examined Zimmerman, disputed his claims that Martin slammed his head repeatedly on the pavement. She said the following words: “[Zimmerman's] injuries were not life threatening … very insignificant.” These reactionaries like Bill O'Reilly and Alex Jones lie and say that the President is trying to contribute to a race riot (or blacks will collectively riot) when they have no evidence to back that up. I disagree with the President on many issues from foreign policy to civil liberty issues, but even I realize that he is not to be blamed for all things under the sun in the Universe. See, it is mostly the white media, and many ignorant human beings that are stirring up racial antagonism about rioting. Folks with common sense will never utilized unjustified violence at all. Trayvon Martin was a kid that had every right to walk in that community and to live his life. Also, human beings have every right to protest and to be in the streets to make their voices heard constructively. We will never forget Oscar Grant, Mr. Kenneth Chamberlain, Ramarley Graham, Amadou Diallo, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Jones, Emmett Till, etc. I will know them forever and every single day of my day. I do this for them and for my ancestor including my God.
There have been people living in caves as UK homelessness reaches a five year high. There are homeless males and females living in a network of disused sandstone caves near the town center of Stckport, Greater Manchester. There have been as high as 4 people a night sleeping in the rough in the cave system. It is perched on a 20 foot precipice overhanging a river, only a short distance from public view. A report talking about this issue is found in the Manchester Evening News. It said that Stockport in the north of England has seen a 42 percent increase in homelessness in just one year. The project manager is named Jonathan Billing. He said that, “The number of people turning up each day for support has soared from around 60 to 70 to around 140 in the last three years.” His organization have seen a huge surge in demand among more middle class, affluent people. After having worked for years, they lost everything in the downtown according to Billings. Billings emphasized the risk that these people face when sleeping without shelter: “Unfortunately when people are sleeping rough they will come to very dangerous places. I know of people who have fallen into the river.” The government official statistics were published. It showed that there is a five year high in homelessness across the UK. That includes 54,540 households declared homeless. There are some 4.500 households now living in bed and breakfast accommodation (B&B). The figure has more on the year on year increase for a growing number of families who have been left stuck in B&B accommodation beyond the six week legal limit. Some of these families are forced to live in a single room with no cooking facilities having to share a bathroom with many other families in the same building. The number of human beings housed outside the area where they initially are from has risen by 14 percent. There are 9,000 of the households as of March 31, 2013 having to live in another local authority. This caused many humans a long distance away from work, family, and support networks. Campbell Robb, chief executive of the homeless charity Shelter, said that many families were at the “breaking point”. “Behind these numbers are thousands of families up and down the country who have lost the battle to stay in their homes,” he explained. In the last two years the numbers of people defined as sleeping rough across the UK has risen by 31 percent. Many families face increasing pressure trying to make ends meet. Shelter reported that 4 out of 10 families with children have had to cut down on what they spend on food in the last year. A YouGov poll of 4,000 people carried out for Shelter showed that 27 percent of those polled had to cut back on gas and electricity bills to be able to pay for rent or mortgage costs. A total of 57 percent of adults, and 64 percent of families with children were struggling to pay their rent or mortgage last year. Sheltler said that one in three people can't pay their rent or mortgage for a month if they lost their ob. There are 35 percent polled or 8.6 million people saying that they could not pay their rent or mortgage from their savings for a month. About 4.4 million human beings polled or 18 percent said that they would not be able to pay the rent or mortgage at all if they didn't secure a new job immediately. The financial crisis or precipice is increasing. There are 3.9 million British families just one pay check away from the threat of losing their homes. There are more humans who are tenants with the AST since they lost their homes. AST stands for Assured Short hold tenancies. They are ruled in the private rented sector. They have less housing rights. Housing benefit payments are being cut. There has been a bedroom tax or a penalty on unoccupied rooms for those on benefits in local authority and housing association accommodation. Further cuts to the welfare budget are to be implemented following the government’s spending review. Campbell Robb from Shelter commented, “Millions are living on the edge of a crisis, only secure in their homes for a matter of weeks. At the same time, support for people who have lost their homes is being stripped away. It’s easy to see why every fifteen minutes, another family in England finds themselves homeless.” There are rising private rents that are pushing up the numbers of working people having to claim top up housing benefit to cover the payment. This is causing a shortage of affordable homes and folks have no choice but to rent. This causes more demand on the rental market and driving up costs.
In California, one prison has the largest hunger strike in history. Thousands of inmates have done this hunger strike. This comes about, because the prison conditions in those prisons have been deteriorating. There has been the harsh usage of indefinite solitary confinement practices. This is a form of state sanctioned torture. The hunger strike is occurring in 24 of 33 state prisons and oversees according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). It is being done in 4 out of state for profit facilities used by the state as well. About 30,000 have refused meals and their actions have acquired broad support. The CDCR press released mentioned that nearly 12,500 inmates have refused at least nine consecutive meals. That is the threshold set by the department for a hunger strike. The report says that 1,336 inmates have refused to participate in the work assignments or attend educational classes. The CDCR warned inmates that they “could face disciplinary action” for engaging in a “mass disturbance,” such as a coordinated hunger strike or work stoppage, both of which are considered “violations of state law.” In order to “maintain normal program operations,” the CDCR further warned that it could potentially “take additional measures to effectively monitor and manage hunger strikers and their nutritional intake,” a statement that appears to threaten the force-feeding of inmates. Many in California are in prison in state and out of state. There are about 133,000 individuals in its prison system with nearly 9,000 of those houses in out of state facilities which are run by private firms. CCA or the Corrections Corporation of America handles the private facilities that California handles outside of the state. California has an overcrowding prison system. In late May 2011, in a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that the overcrowding situation in California prisons violated an inmate’s Eighth Amendment constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. In that decision, which upheld a lower court’s previous ruling from 2009, the Supreme Court ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by over 33,000 inmates in order to reach a capacity level of 137.5 percent, or approximately 110,000 total inmates (the level initially requested by the lower court in 2009). On July 1, 2011, there was a hunger strike as a means to try to get more humane prison conditions. The whole California prison system can safely house 80,000 inmates. The PHSS or the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition works to fight for the rights of inmates. They want to have basic demands. They want to have an end to “group punishment [for individual actions] and administrative abuse;” elimination of the “debriefing policy,” which rewards individuals who provide information on other inmates, and the modification of “gang status criteria;” an end to indefinite solitary confinement; access to “adequate and nutritious food;” and, the creation of “constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates.” Even Amnesty International has documented this evil use of indefinite solitary confinement practices in California prisons (in their report). Some inmates receive no vocational training opportunities or educational programs when they are in SHU for an indefinite amount of time. This action is inhuman. Back in Alcatraz back in the 1930's, there was D-Block where human beings were forced without light and forced to remain naked for 23 hours a day. Michael “Zaharibu” Dorrough, an inmate who has participated in the hunger strike and who is held in Corcoran State Prison’s SHU, gave a glimpse of life in isolation. He said folks cut themselves and scream. Juan E. Méndez, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, spoke before the UN General Assembly not long after the 2011 hunger strike ended in California. Among other things, he characterized the use of solitary confinement beyond 15 days as torture and called for its “absolute prohibition.” “Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit [SHU],” Méndez said, “whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique.” The 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture as, “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.” So, these inmates deserve human rights not to be treated lower than animals at all.
There is another issue to discuss. It is about some who claim to be independent folks and want economic freedom, but are really reactionaries at heart. We have economic troubles and some folks want to even ally with unsavory characters as a means to try to look against the status quo when they are not. Now, the reality is that we live in a multicultural society. The enemy knows this completely. Many of these reactionaries hide their true colors in many social situations. Some of the reactionaries show information those appeals to many African Americans and the young. The reason is that they use anti-government rhetoric that has appeal from across backgrounds. They are talking about the corruption found in the Federal Reserve, which I disagree with. They are accurate on that point. Some of them talk about the corruption in the police, which is accurate. They view the government as out of control, which is right on many issues. Some of them outline many truths like how record bailouts to big banks are harming America. Some of them talk about 9/11 and globalization. Yet, there is a catch with them. The catch is that many of them are anarcho-capitalists, libertarians, and reactionaries that hate altruism and expressed hatred of immigrants via xenophobia. They use being against illegal immigration as a cover to advance the most gross, stereotypical, and bigoted lies against immigrants. They want to use ICE to smash immigrant communities. Not to mention that the imperialists stole the land from the indigenous people including from Mexican Native American people centuries ago. NAFTA gave free reign to corporations to rape and pillage the land including to economically exploit the people. Millions of Mexican farmers were ruined by NAFTA. It shows that free trade without much checks and balances is harming the world. Even Alex Jones, the famous reactionary, refuses to end immigrant detention prisons. One of their heroes named Ron Paul refuse to give back money he received from racist white supremacists. With Alex Jones, he uses race mongering and some racial antagonism in dealing with the George Zimmerman trial (and Jones tries to defend white supremacist slave traders like George Washington). Alex Jones is an expert at exposing corporatism, but refusing to replace the system with a system where working people including the people to own it not just the rich. Jones hates a social democracy. The reality is that this is a struggle for liberty and the evils of capitalism have a great deal to do with our oppression, even beyond the evil acts of the Federal Reserve or the big banks. One thing that these faux patriots will not do is to expose the system of white supremacy. That system uses its power as a means to harm peoples of color including the rest of humanity in the world. It is as simple as that. It is a wicked, cartel-capitalist system that runs most schools, courts, banks, food, water, transportation, jobs, jails, housing, etc. in Western society. If we want change, then we have end that wicked system. Also, these faux independents want to destroy the social safety net. I have no issue with ending the police state in America, but I have a serious issue with destroying Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, lunch programs, food stamps, and other means of survival for fellow human beings. That is genocide and it has been the agenda of the elite for decades. So, we know the truth. The truth is that all humans should have equality. All humans should have affordable, quality health care. All humans should have the opportunity to receive a great education. All human beings are created equal regardless of their background. This country has to live up to its original creed. We have the right to fight for justice and liberty.
The GOP rammed a farm bill without food stamps in it through the House. This will allow the agriculture industry to have a baseline income. This is the goal of the reactionaries. The GOP for years has wanted to undermine or outright end food stamps or called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Many Democrats criticized this decision loudly before C-SPAN. Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) used a parliamentary tactic to silence Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) after the Democrat said “Shame on the Republicans” in her remarks. Brown was baffled when the acting chairman told her to sit down, and her colleagues noted the Republican proclivity for attacking Democrats by name. After several minutes Woodall dropped his objection. (His office confirmed he had objected but declined to comment on his reasoning.) Brown finished her remarks with a reference to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, saying “you-all do not care about the 47 percent.” One Democratic person said that the majority enforced unusually strict rules all over that day on how Democrats could voice their arguments on the floor. Later, the House voted 216 to 208 to approve the food stamps-free farm free bill. The GOP have sought to cut food stamps for years from then President Bush’s veto of a food aid funding increase in mid-2008 to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budgets that would cut the program by more than a hundred billion dollars. The war on SNAP is ever real. SNAP kept 4.7 million families out of poverty in 2011 alone. It has one of the lowest fraud rates of any federal program with a return of nearly $2 for every dollar spent. It has been very effective in helping humanity. The poor will suffer by gutting SNAP. Obviously, some in the GOP do not care about the poor. They believe in the mythical god of the free market to help humanity and their idol of libertarianism that has not saved a soul morally, politically, spiritually, or physically in a comprehensive fashion throughout human history.
By Timothy
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