Remembering the Past and Learning in the Present

 

The truths about the Affordable Care Act are readily known. The Republicans oppose the law for all of the wrong reasons. The law has its own contradictions as we see. It is not a national health program since the insurance companies wrote the law and are involved in executing the law. Many private insurers make money by dealing with the health interests of their customers. After the law was passed, reactionary GOP members opposed it since they disagree with any public health care system. The GOP omits that the law was a Republican inspired bill. The Affordable Care Act is a distortion of true universal health care. It was created by the powers that be as a means to subsidize and more deeply embed a private insurance system that can make profits (it can deny sick and vulnerable human beings health care). It also plays different demographics against each other. We know what works. Every other industrialized nation in the world has universal health care. We know that we can't create a genuine universal health care system based on cut throat capitalism. The corporate interests benefit when more Americans buy into private insurers. The ACA benefits corporate subsidies greatly. To use public money to prop up private insurers is something else. It is important to not serve corporate stockholders and to serve the public. You either serve either one or the other. The ACA will make huge profits for private corporations. The website tried to match people with medical resources that they need to survive and thrive. The law makes those who get health care and those who will not get it. The corporations win big with the law. They want healthy people to fund the insurance business. Many of the youth are avoiding the ACA. A national health care program like Medicare for All can allow young folks would love to join it. Large majorities of Americans still support Medicare for all or universal health care. The Republican reactionaries set up the blueprint for the ACA back in 1989. It is obvious that Medicare has been attacked by reactionaries and even some Democrats for a while now. Medicare has been harmed by corporate insurance healthcare providers as well. The corporate lobbyists in Washington coerced politicians in Washington to harm our health care services in America. The ACA has been too complex on some levels. The insurance industry and others created the law and the law is thousands of pages long. The Affordable Care Act proves that privatization can never provide for the people better than public resources. The fundamental flaw of the ACA is that it entrenches a market-based system that treats health care as a commodity and profit center for Wall Street. The big drivers of the rising cost of health care - insurance, pharmaceuticals and for-profit hospitals - continue. The wealth divide that is a major byproduct of neoliberal economics is institutionalized by law under the ACA. So, we know the truth. The reality is that health care is a human right. It is not a privilege. Health care is a great thing.


There is the U.S. military continuing to have a massive buildup in Philippine disaster zone. It took over the air traffic in Tacloban. The death toll in the central Philippines continues to grow. There is a huge disaster via the devastation caused by the Typhoon Haiyan. As of noon, November 18, the current official count of the Philippine government National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (or the NDRRMC) said that there are 4,881 human beings dead. The death toll continues to grow as remote areas have the dead as well. There are about 2 million human beings homeless. There are a total of 11 million are reported to have been affected by the damage. The vast regions of the islands of Samar and Leyte have been laid waste by the storm, and the city of Tacloban is in ruins. There is a huge humanitarian crisis as well. Hundreds of thousands of human beings are without access to food, potable water, medicine, or sanitation. There have been roads throughout the islands remain impassible and entire communities are completely isolated. Washington has deployed a massive military force in the region. The nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington with 5,000 sailors and 80 aircraft is in the Leyte Gulf. There are strike groups of two guided missile cruisers, two guided missile destroyers, a cargo ship, and an oceanographic survey ship, and a submarine tender. Still, they will be joined by 3 amphibious warfare ships and 2 littoral combat ships. About 850 U.S. troops are on the ground in Leyte and are to be joined by an additional 1,000 U.S. Marines in the next two days. The Joint Task Force 505 is under the command of Marine Corps Lt. General John E. Wissler. He set up headquarters for the U.S. forces in Camp Aguinaldo or the military headquarters of the Philippine Army. This build up is real. They are commanding the Philippine military forces. They are controlling flights in the region. There has been a de factor marital system in Tacloban. Armed military guard the streets. Private guards defend the homes and property of the wealthy. There have been many workers harmed by the storm too. The population in Tacloban is now being subjected to a “food for work” program. The distribution of food aid to the residents of Tacloban has been made contingent upon their completing a certain amount of unpaid work for the city. That is disgraceful. President Aquino vetoed the use of funds to have pre-disaster preparations like having construction. Reports from volunteer workers surfaced in social media over the past two days, revealing that one of the reasons for the Philippine government’s delayed delivery of food supplies was that international aid packages containing bottled water, canned goods and powdered milk were being individually opened and repackaged with labels from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). So, we should continue to advocate justice for the victims and the nation of the Philippines.



There is a terrorist attack at Iranian embassy in Lebanon. It killed 23 people and wounded 140 human beings. At least 23 human beings have been killed via the terrorist attack. Over 140 human beings have been injured. It was a suicide bomb attack. It targeted Iran's embassy compound in Lebanon. Most of the dead were passerby human beings. They were from the predominately Shiite southern Beirut neighborhood of Janah. Janah is where the embassy is situated. Iran confirmed the death of its embassy's cultural attaché. The al-Qaeda affiliated group called the Abdullah Azzam Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack in a tweet by its "spiritual mentor" named Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat. The Brigade reportedly vowed to continue such attacks until Iran and Hezbollah (or an Iranian-allied Lebanese Shiite militia) cease militarily supporting Syria's government. This can escalate tensions in the Middle East. The U.S. and its allies now are having high level talks with Iran in dealing with its nuclear program. The Syrian regime may want to arrange a diplomatic settlement with the U.S. back Al-Qaeda linked Syrian opposition. Iran is still having negotiations in Geneva over its nuclear program. There is the P-6 involved in these talks. They include the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany. Iran and the P-6 in early November of 2013 nearly has an interim agreement according to which Tehran would suspend its nuclear program in exchange for a partial easing of U.S. and European sanctions against Iran. It would return only 5 billion dollars of the tens of billions of Iranian oil revenues currently frozen in foreign bank accounts. Many U.S. allies are opposed to these talks like Israel, Saudi Arabia, those with ties with Al-Qaeda. They want the sanctions to remain until Iran's civilian nuclear program is completely dismantled. They believe in the unsubstantiated charge that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They have a fear of Iran and Iran having a rapprochement, which can reduce their importance as U.S. allies. The claiming of responsibility for the bombing by an Al Qaeda-linked group suggests that the atrocity was likely carried out with support from these US allies. Saudi Arabia in particular has longstanding ties to Al Qaeda, whose first leader, Osama bin Laden, came from one of the kingdom’s wealthiest families. Saudi Arabia has, along with Qatar, emerged as one of the main backers of the Al Qaeda-linked Syrian opposition forces. The residents of Janah blame the Saudis for the bombing. A New York Times report said a local woman could be heard near the site of Tuesday’s bombing shouting, “May God send Bandar to hell! This is the Saud family.” Prince Bandar Bin Sultan is the Saudi intelligence chief and the organizer of its financial and military support for its Islamist proxies in Syria. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spoke at Rome. He blamed the bombing on the rise of Al-Qaeda linked militias in Syria. The militias have been armed and supported by the United States and its allies. “We already see the consequences of the extremist forces in Syria,” Zarif said. “The same organizations are killing people on the streets of Baghdad. … It is a very serious problem, and I believe once we see a flare-up of the tension that is boiling in Syria, there will be hardly a possibility of stopping it at the Syrian border [and] even within the Middle East.” Syrian Foreign Minister did not directly blame Saudi Arabia for the bombing. He said that it was an outcome of the Saudi and Qatari monarchies' support for Al Qaeda aligned militias. Many illegals wars over a decade in the Middle East are real. The West wants hegemony in the Middle East as a means to control economic and oil resources. The West is funding a Sunni Islamic insurgency in Syria as well. Israel and Saudi Arabia are allies in favoring more aggressive action in Iran. The West wants Iran to accept U.S. hegemony in the region. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused the Obama administration of preparing to deliver Tehran the diplomatic victory of the century. He sent senior officials to Washington to lobby for the US Congress to impose still harsher sanctions on Iran, and proclaimed that Israel will not necessarily be bound by any deal signed by the P-6—an implicit threat of a unilateral Israeli military strike on Iran. Israel wants to strike Iran if talks fail. Saudi Arabia said that it will assist an Israeli strike. There are the stalled U.S.-Russian led talks over Syria. Lebanese Shiite neighborhoods are being targeted by terrorists. Hezbollah and other Sunni Islamists are fighting against each other.


History is important to know. After 50 years, we see more of the truth. The attack on the World Trade Center was a criminal act, which was perpetrated against people who done nothing wrong at all. The unjust assassination of President John F. Kennedy and its cover up was done by evil human beings as well. Back then, after the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Johnson exploited the Gulf of Tonkin incident as a means to escalate the Vietnam War. We know that the Republican Party went from the part that led the Civil War and embraced many progressive views back then to a party of mostly reactionaries and numerous extremists. Jingoistic patriotism is embraced by the Republican Party. Both parties have embraced imperialism, the shredding of our human history, economic exploitation, and other evils. Even Harry Truman tried to justify the abhorrent action of the nuclear bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed thousands upon thousands of innocent human being. The Cold War and the harming of unions came under the Truman administration even before McCarthy came on the major national scene. The Rosenbergs were on trial under Truman. So, Truman was not some pacifist in terms of his policies at all when dealing with the Cold War. LBJ wanted to buy off the working class by not making them pay for the Vietnam War. He passed some genuine progressive measures, but others were right that radical action was necessary for have true human social justice. The Black Panthers wanted this liberation. The FBI killed many of them. The FBI and local police authorities killed over thirty members of the Black Panther Party alone in the era of the 1960's and the 1970's. Today, the struggle for freedom and justice is not over. Police brutality is still a huge problem in America. We know that police brutality then and now have harmed communities of color, especially against the black community. Also, Asians, Hispanics, whites, old, young, etc. have all been victims of evil police brutality indeed. The militarization of society has been a disgrace. When human beings were beaten by crooked police, when black people's houses were burned to the ground, when our people were raped by racists, and when even innocent black children were beaten by vicious dogs by criminal officers, then that reality causes us to not wait. Freedom is a birthright. You can't wait for justice for humanity. You fight for it ASAP. In the final analysis, political independence is superior to being pawns of either of the major parties.


This is an important issue. Men are valuable in the Universe. Our value is great just like the value of the Sisters in the world today. Mental health is a diverse issue and it ranges from stress to other forms of mental illness. More human beings are discussing about this issue. Mental health issues among men or color are given more reporting in Ebony, Jet, etc. I believe that we should be compassionate with Brothers without patronize. Mental health is complex and men have the right to express feelings via communication. Far too often, some folks embrace the lie that emotional, extensive communication and therapy are threats to manhood. This is not true, because a real man can always use dialogue and communication extensively to grow social development. So, we should eliminate the stigma of therapy or counseling as emasculating to a man. Therapy, communication, and other forms of assistance to combat mental illness are great things for men or for anybody else to execute. Also, on another note, there is REAL LOVE FOR BLACK MEN. My friends and relatives show me love all of the time. My co-workers in real life show me love and respect all of the time. My co-workers greet me. Also, a special Sister here respects me a great deal too. She knows who she is. :) Yes, her late father was a Real Black Man that saved lives during 9/11. He was a great hero. The current wicked white supremacy power structure has no real Love for black men, but I could care less what that power structure thinks of me. I do care about my community though. We fight back against oppression by not having a permanent pity party. We fight back by inspiring black males and black females to be better, to be strong, and to create solutions. We stand up like men. Our ancestors suffered a great deal worse than we suffer today, so I do want to heard no stuff about any love. Our ancestors suffered horrendous pain and if they survived that unspeakable treatment, then we can survive today in this generation. That's REAL TALK. So, those suffering with mental health issues ought to be treated with compassion, respect, and social tolerance. They should not be castigated, but given support. Also, real Black Women will always love a real Black Man. So, I will always love Black Women. The love of self and the knowledge is very important for black men and anyone. Without that, nothing changes. Now, I am sure you mean some black men have self-hatred and other issues. Since, you do not want to generalize here, because there are plenty of black men who are strong, have great leadership qualities, and are fighting for the truth in our community. Many racists always want to degrade and stereotype Black Men and Black Women into gross stereotypes. That is wrong. Black Men should be treated with dignity and with respect. Black Women should be treated with dignity and with respect too. In real life, I know strong black men who are teachers, neighbors, and other workers who love their families, who care for children, and who are diligently enacting solutions in their everyday lives. Now, black men with mental illness should be treated with compassion. They should not be scapegoated for all ills in the black community. They should not be ignored nor treated as social pariahs. They need help. No man is an island. Anyone with mental illness should receive assistance from experts and from us in the black community. Now, black women are loyal, strong, and very intelligent. That is true. Black Unity between black men and black women is a necessity as a means to make solutions. Black men cannot create liberation alone. Black women cannot create liberation alone. Black men and Black women including black children working together can make black liberation a reality. Self-hatred should be opposed strongly and you are 100 percent right on that point. Black families are important and we should use radical efforts as a means to grow black families. Degrading black men and degrading black women are not solutions. The solution is to address not only self-hatred, but to deal with finding ways to uplift Black Men without patronize, to uplift Black Women, and to handle issues in our community constructively (like confronting poverty, confronting evil, and creating programs to build up our people). Many folks have made great points on this issue. We certainly need this discussion in our community.

 

By Timothy