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JFK on Food Stamps

JFK on Food Stamps:

"...During the past year, the Department of Agriculture has been conducting a food stamp program in eight pilot areas. There have been encouraging results from this program. Low income families are receiving better diets--they have been able to obtain meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables. Retail food store sales in these areas increased 8 percent in dollar volume. There have been savings in distribution costs and benefits to the economy of the food stamp communities.

I have therefore asked the Department of Agriculture to continue the program in these areas for another year and to offer the program to an additional 25 areas in 18 states. Addition of the new communities will permit us to obtain a better evaluation of the program under a wider range of operating conditions than was possible initially.

An additional 223,000 persons will be aided by the new program. The states which will benefit are: Arkansas, Oregon, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, Minnesota, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma, Washington, Wisconsin, California, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.

I am grateful to the state and local officials who helped administer the program, to the wholesalers and retailers who distributed the food, to the banks who redeemed the coupons and to the press, radio and television outlets who have been so helpful in explaining it. All of these groups have been most cooperative..."

News in the end of 2014


Economic inequality is a serious problem and it has been growing for decades. The cutting of unemployment benefits from 1.3 million Americans is part of the larger symptom of how neoliberal economic policies don't work at all to help the economy. Cutting those benefits does nothing to solve our economic issues. It can grow problems instead of solving them. The unemployment benefits don't make up a major part of federal spending since it would be only 25 billion dollars in 2014 or less than 1 percent of federal spending. So, we should handle short term issues of allowing the benefits to continue. Also, we should deal with the long term issue of poverty, unemployment, the Federal Reserve, and other issues. The policy of cutting the benefits is hypocrisy, because while the Congress refuses to extend quaint unemployment benefits, they will authorize nearly $633 billion in military spending for 2014, money that will go toward funding the war in Afghanistan, overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, and Washington’s preparations for even more bloody military interventions. Military fraud, waste, and abuse are harming the economy in America. Ending imperialism can allow us to gain resources necessary to fund American society. We should deal with public and private debt in a rational fashion too. Also, the federal government has used cuts in the SNAP program or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It will be 11 billion cuts over 3 years. Democrats and Republicans are currently negotiating the terms of further cuts in the food stamp program. Just days after Congress passed the budget allowing long-term jobless benefits to expire; the Federal Reserve announced it would continue to keep its benchmark interest rate at near-zero at least into 2015. At the same time, it pledged to continue pumping tens of billions of dollars into the financial markets every month, although at a somewhat reduced level, for months to come. There is the continuing of the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the super rich. Austerity threatens to cut resources from public education, Medicare care for seniors and the poor, pensions, restraints on child labor, health and safety rules, environmental regulations, workers' compensation, public museums, and libraries. Even more evidence see that the ACA will boost profits of insurance companies and corporations while some will have their care manipulated in a wild direction. Human beings have the right to secure their jobs, education, Medicare, pensions, housing, access to culture, etc. My views on economics are the same as Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, and other Brothers and Sisters with amazing intellectual insight and excellent intelligence. The policies of the Federal Reserve benefit oligarchy and not most of the American people at all (with their fractional banking system controlled by select central banks. The FED has been exposed by folks from across the political spectrum. Bill Still has great research on this issue). We know the criminal actions of Wall Street and some big banks hiding trillions of dollars. We should fight for self-sufficiency, allowing the people to form independent banking systems, and to create unique ways to invest in our infrastructure.


There is continued violence in Thailand. There is the Thailand's IMF backed color revolution. There are many comparisons to the events in Thailand to what occurred in Syria, Libya, Egypt, etc. Many criminals are shooting the police and protesters. Many in the color revolution movement want to attack voter registration locations, boycott the elections if they can't win, and attempt to occupy election commission offices in an effort to prevent the will of the people from being recognized in the upcoming special emergency election that the government called for in response to the crisis. These actions violate democratic freedoms. If IMF interests are threaten in a nation, the elite try to control a nation further one way or another. We know that in Libya, Christopher Stevens and other State Department assets entered Libya secretly on (possibly on a Greek merchant ship). Though he supposedly arrived in Libya in April, the state department had him listed as a special representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council at least a month earlier in March. His task was to unify the opposition and stage various events they could use to make the Gaddafi-led government look like monsters in need of a humanitarian bombing campaign. The Libyan destabilization campaign started with the protests in mid-January of 2011. Many of these protesters grew rocks and gasoline bombs. On Feb. 19th the shooting started. “Witnesses” (on the opposition side of course) claimed Gaddafi’s troops were in a helicopter firing on protesters but of course for some reason no one’s cell phone video cameras seemed to work that day. In reality, regime change assets started shooting protesters to make it appear that the government was out of control and killing their own people. The rebel criminals were killing people and when Gaddafi was dead, the whole nation changed. In Syria around the same time, Robert Ford had just arrived in Dec. of 2010 and set to work bribing local opposition party leaders and hiring thugs to destabilize the nation in the hopes that he could make it ripe for regime change like his counterpart was doing in Libya. It wasn’t long before protesters were being killed by masked gunmen so the Assad government could be blamed. NATO bombed Libya. Syria is different where Syria is intact for now. It has been harmed by Western backed terrorist operations for 3 years. Thailand rejected an IMF proposal. The proposal wanted to end rice subsidies to Thailand's indigenous farmers. They make up about two thirds of the working population of the country. The rice subsidy program was so hated by the elites and the oligarchs in the country, that the IMF went overt in opposing it. The IMF wants neoliberalism. Neoliberalism destroys the nation's agricultural base and harms the indigenous economy of Thailand. Bill Clinton harmed the agricultural communities in Haiti via his neoliberal policies. When you wipe out the indigenous farming communities in Thailand, just like in Haiti, you will have scores of unemployed migrant workers fleeing to the industrialized zones (free trade zones) in Thailand looking to take work at pennies a day while their farmlands are handed over to multinational conglomerates or a few local politically connected oligarchs and their families like the protest’s main leader, Suthep Thaugsuban for example. We know that Suthep has ties to the Thai elite for decades. The elite hate any form of protectionism or defending your own manufacturing, agricultural, and economic base from outside globalization. Folks have the right to have their own independence outside of oligarchy. Suthep Thaugsuban has been saying since the beginning that they don’t want a new emergency election but instead he calls for an unelected trifecta of business-first technocrats to rule the nation. So, NGO sponsored color revolutions should be opposed at every level completely. 




There is the issue of Russia and the American Empire. We see the American Empire declining in the Middle East. Empires have declined and ended throughout human history. We all wish for imperialism and unjust empires to end completely. There are many American allies in the region that seek new alternatives to the actions of Washington. Many reactionaries and neo-cons did not view the Cold War as ending. They want to strategically contain and weaken Russia and China. The West wanted to control the Middle East and use tensions against Iran and Syria. This hegemonic power structure is among America and Moscow (including Beijing). Since the end of WWI, the West has carved the Middle Eastern lands into many parties. The West has been involved in foreign meddling and bitter rivalries among regional dynasties and powers. Times are changing and regional events evolve constantly in the Middle East. The evil of the Pax Americana was never peaceful. The empire is dying. U.S. dominance in the Middle East came after WWII. It grown and in 1979, the Iranian revolution came. Later, the steady decline of American influenced continued under the huge, monumental blunders of the U.S. government of George W. Bush Jr. Then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was very sure in 2006 that American domination in the broader Middle East would expand. She said that even after Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon that the map in the Middle East would change to the profit of America. Israel lost the war and the American Empire continues to fall. Hamas has influence in the Gaza Strip. The economic blockade, political sabotage, a mini-civil war with Fatah, nor the series of wars launched by Israel have removed the Hamas-led government in Gaza. In Lebanon, Hezbollah's influence has increased dramatically. The West wants puppet regimes in the Middle East. The U.S. has not totally neutralized its enemies in the Middle East. There is no regime change yet in Damascus. An interim deal reached in the Swiss city of Geneva was between America and Iran. Many American allies sensing the decline of the Western empire are seeking relationships in Tel Aviv, Riyadh, etc. The Egyptian military rule Egypt now. Russian ships are near Egypt now. The Russian port calls were matched on the diplomatic levels by the Kremlin on November 13, 2013. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu arrived with large delegations to Egypt in what Lavrov described as a “historic” event. The two cabinet ministers were sent to Cairo by the Kremlin as feelers to get a sense of the mood in Egypt. Some speculate that Egypt is using Russia to be a bargaining chip as a response to U.S. cutting some military aid to Egypt. The Russian Federation gives arms to Egypt and Syria. It is the second largest provider of military hardware to Iraq too after the USA. Russia aids Iran too. Russia has more leverage in Middle Eastern policies. They even started a strategic dialogue with Lebanon's Hezbollah. Along with Iran, Russia has been a major influence in Damascus and helped Syria withstand regime change. The terrorist attack on the Russian Embassy in Damascus is a testimony to Russia’s important influence. The Western influence is in competition with the Russian influence inside of the Middle East. 

The Black Panther Party members are our heroes. They sacrificed their time, effort, and strength to defend the black community for real. They were the real deal as evident on how the FBI literally murdered many of them, slandered them, and stalked them. The history of the Black Panther Party is ever real. The Black Panther Party deals with the politics of being anti-imperialism and wanted to use the community directly as part of the solution to issues. Real power justly flows from the people or from the bottom up. Liberation can never come from the elites or the super-rich directly totally at all. They believed that they were fighting a class struggle and they were explicit opposed to capitalism (as they believed in socialistic ideals). They were against Western empire and wanted to end the war in Vietnam and the colonial exploitation in Africa and other areas of the Third World. Many of them worked in free breakfast programs and free medical clinics as a means to help humanity. Fred Hampton gave many speeches that denounced black capitalism. The Black Panthers (among males and females) studied literature from Amilcar Cabral, Franz Fanon, Malcolm X, Basil Davidson, Daniel Mannix, Malcolm Cowley, and so many other authorities. The BPP"s Ten Point Programs greatly outlines the agenda of the BPP in full display. During the time of the BPP, Muhammad Ali, Dr. King, and SNCC denounced the war. One great book about how the murder of Brother Fred Hampton is the 2009 book entitled, "The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther" by Jeffrey Haas. The book proves that Fred's bodyguard was a police informer or a provocateur who urged the Panthers to do illegal acts and got them guns. He drew up a floor plan of the apartment, including where Hampton slept, so the police knew exactly where to find him. A second autopsy, performed at the request of Haas’s team, showed that the two gunshot wounds to Fred’s head were fired at a downward angle at close range. For real Black Power is about building the confidence and power base of black people. It is never about unwarranted hatred against human beings of any color or race at all. Black Power is about community development and it is about Black Love in action too. So, Fred Hampton was set up and murdered by the FBI and the Chicago Police. There was a strong anti-colonial movement by Brothers and Sisters in Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique. Community organizing has been a great action of revolutionary change. Without community development, nothing changes. Also, we all realize that the struggle for black liberation is not over. We still have many bourgeoisie politicians that want reform not revolution. In other words, we are battling against attacks to our economic freedoms, our social freedoms, our civil rights and basic environmental protection. We are battling against militarism too. We have to deal with the mass incarceration of our Brothers and increasingly our Sisters. So, we are fighting for political and economic self-determination as black people. 

More and more human beings are talking about Mark Dice. Mark Dice is famous for his comments about popular culture. He talks about the Illuminati and his views. He recently discussed such issues on Sway's radio show. Mark Dice is a type of person that is a reactionary. He uses ad hominem attacks against human beings that he disagrees with. He has arrogance since he mocks human beings who don't know about the war on terror, civil liberty issues, and other real issues in the world. Instead of mocking people, he should educate human beings on community development, on spiritual empowerment in a compassionate fashion, and oppose neoliberalism. Back in the day, we once didn't know about true wisdom. We should have humility and a great sense of humbleness toward humanity, so many human beings can see the truth. Now, he is not wrong on all issues. He is right that groups like the CFR, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, etc. exist. They exist and their members include many high level political figures, media moguls, corporate executives, and other super rich elites. There is the agenda of transhumanism promoted in the world. The Bavarian Illuminati existed before and it was created in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt. It is accurate that many political leaders have advocated the new world order or one world government. Dice goes off in the deep end by speculating on celebrities claiming that many celebrities are knowingly followers of the Illuminati or using ad hominem attacks against folks while claiming to be so spiritual. Yes, Mark Dice said racist comments before. I wrote about this issue before. Here is a recap. On a video, he used the N word to a black woman. He said that places called Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd are total ghettoes. He said that a rapper (named ASAP Rocky) looks like he has been smoking crack and that he is a rhyming rat. He said that many black people follow primitive tribalism. Mark Dice mocks black people with using sick slang. He is also a sexist, which is common for racists. So, this male Mark Dice is a reactionary racist (who has more in common to FOX News than folks like look like me. Obviously, I am a black man) that exploits information as a means to promote an agenda. His acts hurts not helps true human liberation and revolutionary movements in the world. The real issue is not to being paranoid about the Illuminati. The real issue is talking about building our communities for real. We should learn about the real meanings of symbols, we should oppose imperialism (and the wicked actions of the FBI, the CIA, etc.), endorse independent economic solutions, believe in love for humanity, and we should fight for human civil liberties. That is the point. 


By Timothy



Friday, December 27, 2013

Real Truths Before 2014


 


It is easy to see that capitalism has been a very imperfect system. It has been related to slavery and wage oppression. This is not just me typing these words down. Capitalism has been criticized by Malcolm X, Dr. King, Fred Hampton, and our other heroes for years and decades. So, it is what it is. We all realize that capitalism deals with some form of slavery where the workers are enslaved by the capitalist class.  Capitalism deals with oppression. Human beings on many cases in that system are forced to work at a job owned by a capitalist (they owned the jobs, the means of production, and the profit from the jobs) in order to have benefits or have a strong "living." The job is owned by a capitalist employers including the wages, hours, and working conditions. Many workers are treated as a commodity, they are dehumanized, and some are treated as a hired hand. Many of the ruling class can destroy jobs, mechanize jobs, or take jobs to a cheaper labor place. That is why many workers are fighting for higher wages or safe working conditions. The jobless today can't find a job in many circumstances. The job market has been reduced and poverty grows (some folks have faced destitution or even death because of poverty or lack of job opportunities). All workers either face wage injustice, imperfections in the system, or physical, chattel slavery worldwide. Today, at least 27 million people are enslaved globally. About 95 percent of all 6.4 billion person living today work under lax wages. When human beings are controlled by others in control of their lives, then we should investigate that situation. Wage injustice is when a person must sell his or her labor power under the authority of an employer in order to survive literally. In America, Southern plantation owners and capitalists who made millions from the international slave trade brainwashed most Americans in the 19th century that chattel slavery was a fact of nature (which is a lie). Today, capitalists have programmed most contemporary Americans into believing that the evils of capitalist slavery are a necessity to stabilize society (which is another lie). Greed, selfishness, subjugation, and exploitation are all fruits of capitalism.

 

Now, continuing, it is morally right for Americans to end the chattel and overt bond slavery after the Civil War and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Now, workers and the rest of the human family should be free from capitalist slavery. Cooperatives, commonwealth system, and other alternatives to capitalism are great replacements where human beings can live free from slavery of any kind. Politically and economically, all human beings have the right to sustain themselves and lead a free and productive life without exception. Some human beings are held into total slavery and physically beaten plus murdered now. There is even a horrific video of a rich capitalist Saudi Arabian family hanging an Ethiopian female slave upside down from a hook and beating her to a bloody pulp. The Sister was drenched in blood from the whips and sticks that the Saudi thugs used to torture her. See, this is what  they thinks of us. They are from a capitalist family and their slave torturing thugs are not even convicted or imprisoned, yet they are allied with America (which tortures folks too). Many capitalists worldwide are reducing workers to poverty and destitution via unemployment, polluting the seas, using defective nuclear energy plants, causing workers to be murdered in imperialist wars, having deadly austerity policies, etc. The capitalist millionaires and billionaires have increased their wealth 200% since 2009. The people in many times have no rights. 1.2 billion human beings or 24 percent of the total world population live in sever poverty. 46 million Americans lack health insurance, which is 30 percent more than in 1996. While the sales of the Top 200 are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world's workforce. Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew 362.4 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent. Many corporations pay no income taxes. We have as many as 43 percent of American workers in private industry having no paid sick days. Half of the world's population or over 3 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day. A few hundred millionaires and billionaires now own as much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people. That is why some are calling all races, all genders, and all social classes to end this capitalist slavery system. In the corrupt system, the owner of the means of production utilizes less work than the worker, but the owner gets huge profits. The ratio of average chief executive pay to worker pay was 431 to 1 in 2004, up from 301 to 1 in 2003. A worker many times can't quit an oppressive job since few jobs are available that pay a living wage. We know that the invisible hand of the free market is nonexistent and that human beings have common welfare. 

 

School closings in Chicago have been tragic indeed. Many activists have exposed this situation as a racist school closing agenda. CPS or Chicago Public schools have announced plans to close 54 schools, shutter 61 buildings, and turn around 6 schools as part of 71 school actions. These are the most aggressive moves by the so-called education reformers recently. The consequences of such actions will be affected nationally. The growing movement to defend public education will have to increase its efforts in across the nation not just in Chicago. This policy is nothing new in Chicago. African Americans students in many cases experience education with issues. As Catalyst, the publication covering Chicago schools, notes: "Nearly 90 percent of the students in the closing schools are Black, though African Americans make up only about 40 percent of the district's entire student population" on the city's South and West Sides. Chicago Teacher Union or the CTU President Karen Lewis blasted Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who controls the schools via his handpicked board of education). There has been the closing of dozens of neighborhood schools. Children will be harmed by this reality. Since 2001, 88 percent of students impacted by CPS School Actions are African Americans. This is by design to benefit corporate interests at the expense of the lives of the students including the rest of the youth in the city of Chicago. Some of the corporatists followed Renaissance 2010 or a project of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago (that wanted to radically increase the amount of charter schools in Chicago). Corporations bankroll new charter schools, while CPS has systematically shut down 10 or 15 neighborhood schools each year. These massive closing only increase class sizes and does nothing radical to improve public education. Schools are privatized nationwide in America. Charters have virtually replaced all public schools in New Orleans after the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Only 41 percent of students attend such schools. Philadelphia is closing 23 schools. Cleveland has pit charters against traditional schools. Chicago community groups have fought back against the agenda too. In the aftermath of the strike, the CTU issued another study about the impact of racism in the city's schools: "The Black and White of Education in Chicago's Public Schools". The report highlighted the racist character of the city's actions. These closures affect poor and African American schools. This action never affects wealthier schools at all. We see that real estate speculators trying to demolish public housing as a means to create upscale housing too. This gentrification agenda has harmed communities nationwide. That is why the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) has linked the fight for affordable housing to the defense of neighborhoods schools. KOCO's Jitu Brown summed up the struggle last year: "We tie it to a gentrification agenda. We tie it to a racist agenda. We feel like the voices of parents and the people most directly impacted are not respected." We see that there is a bipartisan agreement of trying to have austerity, the cuts in the federal budget, the slashing of the post office, and the privatization of the public schools. 

 

When you start to wake up, things start to change. We know that we have to defeat evil. Our people suffered waves of repression and racism, even now. Yet, that is never an excuse to give up. I will never give up in my life period. During these times, we can't get suck into reactionary movements. Many of these movements falsely claim to be the vanguard of black human values, but they advance women hating, authoritarian theocratic aims, and an anti-worker mentality. Some in such reactionary movements want to glamorize Jim Crow oppression. Many of these faux revolutionaries want to blame the victim for his or her own oppression. We have to honor the legacy of black working people who struggled to break the chains of racist oppression. Some of these reactionaries are nostalgic about Jim Crow oppression. During Jim Crow, black people were lynched, black people were violated heavily of their human rights, black people were not given massively fair trials, tons of black human beings were denied the right to vote unfairly, and black people suffered economic discrimination as well. Many sharecroppers faced huge debt to the plantation owner. Urban workers had to fight tooth and nail for a decent paying job in industry. Schools were filled with outdated books and dilapidated schools. In other words, the old system of Jim Crow is a system that I reject and abhor 100 percent. We don't need the system of Jim Crow or the current system of white supremacy in the 21st century either. From the days of chattel slavery to the wage slavery of modern industry, we witness the corrupt system of oppression. That is why many who obsess with lecturing us on "personal responsibility" refuse to talk about unemployment, health care, the prison industrial complex, police brutality, austerity, and other real issues harming the black community in the world (they certainly issue no solutions to these problems either). There is nothing with wrong having with any human beings having personal responsibility in the world, but we shouldn't use personal responsibility as an excuse to ignore injustices in the world. We should follow the example of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and others who believed in truth and justice. Men and women should work as equals in the fight against oppression. It is important to note that black women have been in the front lines of the struggle of black liberation. For example, Abolitionist Harriet Tubman led a battle before and during the Civil War as a means to fight for black freedom. So, nothing is wrong with jobs for all, for real childcare, for equal pay for equal work, and for economic justice. These things are just common sense. There must be not only workers solidarity, but Black Unity too. There is nothing wrong with Black Love and Black Unity. We need revolutionary solutions in the world. 

 

A lot of folks talk about Miley Cyrus. A lot of the controversial actions of her are concocted by the elite, her image is supported by the elite, and her agenda are intentionally created. She is a puppet and being used to promote the lie that her actions are cool and it overtly and covertly mocks black culture (and promotes the lie that true black culture is related to debauchery, because Cyrus claims to represent real hip hop, which she doesn't). Many of these artists are commanded or influenced by handlers as a means to advance certain trends in society. Yet, any artist should be accountable for their voluntary actions. At the end of the day, we have to find balance. We don't need to be an authoritarian theocracy where human rights are violated, but we shouldn't embrace nihilism either. Miley Cyrus was in the Disney Hannah Montana show. In that show, she acted more innocent in her social disposition. Afterwards, she is acting in a more controversial, vulgar fashion. Her video called "We Can't Stop" breaks the VEVO record as gaining the fastest in 100 million VEVO views. The agenda of the establishment certainly is about advancing wicked pseudo-morality, especially since much of her music is geared toward young children. That is a shame. The good news is that many human beings are fighting for truth and justice in the world today. Miley Cyrus' MTV performance (ironically the industry is anti-female and Miley Cyrus is being used in the anti-female entertainment industry) has been criticized even by liberals as going too far since little children were watching the awards show. I blame the handlers and the leaders in the entertainment industry more since those groups intentionally executed such a performance as a means to advance the agenda of lax morality. We know that VMA awards and other award shows have much occult symbolism and messages. The performances in such award shows are STAGED. Until 2013, Miley was signed with Hollywood Records, a record label that was founded by Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney. Hollywood Records also owns other child stars such as Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez and the Jonas Brothers. Every artist in the record label’s stable has a carefully crafted image to be marketed to its target public. Miley is now working with Britney Spears’ ex-manager Larry Rudolph and signed with RCA records – one of the biggest music labels in the world that owns the likes of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Ke$ha. So, Miley Cyrus is following the good girl gone bad motiff or archetype. So, we have the right to love wholesomeness. Robin Thicke performed with Miley Cyrus in the VMA Awards show. Both acted inappropriately with each other when Cyrus is a 20 year old girl and Robin is a 36 year old married man. His video Blurred Lines is blatantly misogynistic. That video has singers with clothes on while the female models are completely naked and treated as forced sexually objects (or as slaves. The models in the video are treated as inferior and powerless under the control of the singers). Blurred Lines is a disgraceful song. Robin Thicke said the following about the song in GQ Magazine on May of 2013: "...People say, 'Hey do you think this is degrading to  women? I'm like, Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman...We tried to everything that was taboo. Bestiality, drug injections, and everything that is completely derogatory towards women..." He is too gone and too wrong. The VMA performance has Cyrus twerking. We need to write about the puppets yes. We should always disagree with the errors of Miley Cyrus. Yet, we need to see those that pull the strings, who are even worse than the puppets. The puppets are wrong for some of their actions, but they are following the orders of the puppet masters directing the wicked show. The machine or the corporate elite controls much of the actions of artists like Miley Cyrus. We should condemn irrational, recreational drug abuse, sexual exploitation, any immorality, and other evils in the world too. Her actions are choreographed and staged as a means to cause a reaction and get people away from the big picture (which is the evil in the industry is found in the system). There is nothing wrong with prayer either. We should pray for folks to wake up in a compassionate fashion. We want all people to wake up and open their eyes to the truth at the end of the day.
 

 

By Timothy

Savant's words

Thee are many Marxists who would call into question Stalin's "socialism. " And I don't mean just Trotsky. Socialism, at least on the Marxian view (and Stalin regarded himself as a Marxist), entailed the WORKERS theselves taking power and creating a cooperative society. In Stalinist Russia, the workers had no power at all. Apparently for you, as for most orthodox Marxist Leninist (who are here also in agreement with rightists), socialism is identifiable with centralized state control. The party/state bureaucracy (in the name of the workers) holds absolute power over workers and peasants. Only in Nazi Germany were workers as powerless as in Stalinist Russia. I will grant that Stalin probably saw himself as a socialist, and his supporters would agree. But such claim are debatable at best. And some of the best socialist minds (Marxist and non-Marxist) would challenge Stalin's socialist credentials

-Savant


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Ish Tov wrote:
Maybe it's happening. It will be interesting to note how violent will be the official response to Walmart demonstrations as they grow more common and larger.
See how intricately state power is linked to capitalist power. This must end, in every country, worldwide.
True democracy means rule of the PEOPLE! AMAZING, isn't it, that to say this in the USA sounds radical and even seditious!!!
How far we are from realizing the dream of freedom of this country!
Howard Zinn, at Johns Hopkins U in Bmore, once said that fundamental liberation changes in society will not come from one big movement, but from many movements over a period of time.
The Occupy MOvement emerges and subsides (though it still has a presente in Bmore, and its members helped organize relief during Sandyhook hurricane). Low paid American workers rise up in resistance to economic deprivation at thehand of their bosses at Walmart, MacDonalds and other establishments. MOral Monday protests erupt in North Carolina against Republican reactionary efforts to suppress the Black and Latin vote (and votes of others ss well).
The struggle continues. I am not disheartened by the setbacks suffered by Black people or any other oppressed people. The struggle will continue. Freedom will rise like the Dawn.



-Savant



____________________________





Capitalism here to stay? Yeah. Kind of like "eternal Rome" and the Roman empire,
It's true that a few people have become wealtheir than ever before, but averate person becomes increasingly more impoverished than before, and the gap between the haves and have nots have grown--often by leaps and bounds--over the past 30--35 years.
Governments, to protect this system of privilege, will be compelled to resort to increasing political repression or at least severe curtailment of civil liberties.
Capitalism is living on borrowed time. And unless an alternative is found and actualized the whole of civilized life may collapse with it.


-Savant

______________________



At some point the standard of living DID increase, especially after Stalin (and among some urban dwellers during Stalin). But for me that is aside from the point. You can't create a more just society by dictatorially imposing your agenda top down, and shoving it down peoples threads.
The Bolsheviks usurgped the soviets, coralled trade unions, suppressed every other political party (socialist included) but their own, dispersed the contituent assembly, formed a secret police with virtually unfettered powers in 1918, and crushed the Konstadt revolutionaries in the name of the revolution!
YOu canno create freedom while extinguishing freedom. Even Lenin said that you cannot create socialism--ie, a cooperative society self-governed by workers and common folk themselvs--without democracy. But extinguished all democratic initiatives WITHIN the left, not to mention outside the left.
Rosa Luxemburg was spot on with her critique of Bolshevik politics.


-Savant



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One ought never to assume that what has not been cannot be. Or even that what has been cannot be again.
Even the ideas of the Declaration of Independence were once seen as radical, idealistic and unrealizable.
Thinkers who believe men can live without kings were thought mad. Yet their "madness" prove to be more rational than the "realistic" voices of the Establishment.


Hence, I might say that it is reasonable to believe that what certain left visionaries espoused HAS NOT happened--which is obvious. I don't think it reasonable to ASSUME that it CANNOT happen.
As for Marcuse, one might say that there's a 'realistic" streak even in his radical "idealism." At least on his interpretation, Critical theory critiques a given social order and its injustices in light of a possible new social order which would radically deepen and expand the range of human freedom and happiness.
But that critique is based on possibilities already existing at the present time. Early in ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN (often seen as a pessimistic work), Marcuse argues that any given society has an ascertainable measure of material and intellectual resources which might be used differently to improve human life. In industrial societies, these resources are quite sizeable. They could allow the ABOLITION of poverty both domestically and globally if used and organized in a more democratic fashion. In his ESSAY ON LIBERATION, he infers that "Utopian POSSIBILITIES are inherent in the technological of advanced capitalism and socialism: the rational utilization of these forces on a global scale would terminate poverty and scarcity within a forseeable future." (p. 4)


As we know, those technological forces are greater now than in 1969 when Marcuse wrote this. Greater than they were in the late 1950s and 60s when Dr. King was inferring (though from a non-Marxist perspective)very similar conclusions about the possible ending of poverty and the unprecedented expansion of freedom.
Many others --statesmen, philosophers, and even some economists--have inferrred that the possibilities of ending poverty, toil and unfreedom is greater now than before. But it doesn't fit well the interests and agendas of ruling elites in either East or West.




A society without slaves, without the subjection of women, seemed unrealistic to most Greeks and Romans--even to distinguished minds like Aristotle and Plato.
Today, a life wthout poeverty, toil and misery, without racism, exploitation and war, seems "unrealistic" to many.
But history, which sometimes shows us that we can be worse than we realize, also at times shows that we can be BETTER than we imagined.
So, while I am not a gambling man, if I had to gamble--to make some Pascalian wager--it would be on the possible freedom and liberation of the human being. A new order of things that which will make liberated lives of dignity and decency the birthright of every man, woman and child on earth.
That's te aim of any true revolution: FREEDOM RISING!


-Savant

http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TB0LQ4NM9CP3T25HP/p59

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For example, in her lecture on Frederick Douglass she conceptualizes alienation as the absenceor loss of an "authentic identity--aconcption perhaps compatitle with the Marxian concept of "alienated labor,: but still a very different idea. It's implicit background is the experience and thought of Black peooples and colonized peoples generally, more so than the exploited proletariat.


-Savant


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StAG_R_LEE wrote:

Thanks, George Jackson's name is seldom mentioned and I was surprised when I came across Savant's comment.. Indeed,his book, " Soledad Brothers" should be read by Black men; it's more important now than it was in the past.(This is not to say that I agree with every point in the book, but his views--especially as they are related to unemployment and prison conditions--give sharp insights to the conditions Black men confront.)
I think there's another flic, possibly orignally a PBS program (not sure) on George Jackson called "Day of the Gun." Angela Davis and a number of other Soledad brothers (including, I believe, Fleeta Drumgo) are interviewed in that flic. Angela reminds us that George wanted to "transform the black criminal mentality into a black revolutionary mentality."
George Jackson was also a talented writer. SOLEDAD BROTHER became a classic both here and abroad.
BLOOD IN MY EYE, Jackson's last book (published days before his death) has been re-issued by BLACK CLASSICS PRESS. A publishing company out of Bmore run by elder warrior Paul Coates, former head of the Bmore Black Panther Party (and friend of my family).



-Savant

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Christmas Day News









The Federal Reserve is dealing with economic problems in America in their own ways. The U.S. Federal Reserve Board will begin to taper its program of QE or quantitative easing. QE is about the pumping of 1 trillion dollars a year into the financial markets as a means to signal more normal monetary policy. QE was soon found out to be a commitment of the provision of ultra-cheap money. It funded financial parasitism that brought untold wealth to the corporate and financial elites. There is still worsening social conditions for billions of human beings globally. The key decision was not the reduction in the asset purchasing program by $10 billion a month (this move will have little to no effect in the economy). It is the FED's continued commitment to maintain the federal funds rate in the range of zero to 0.25 percent. Previously, the U.S. central bank had indicated it would consider lifting the rate (the interest it charges on loans to major banks when the U.S. unemployment rate went below 6.5 percent). But in its statement last Wednesday, the Fed made clear that money would continue to be provided to the banks at virtually no cost “well past the time” the official unemployment rate went below that level—in other words, at least until 2015, and probably beyond. Financial markets duly celebrated the decision. The Wall Street's S&P 500 index reached a record high at the end of last week. It has risen by 27 percent in the year so far. The FED's policies so far has not massively boost growth in the real economy and created more jobs on a vast scale. It just continues the financial parasitism that has been a great part of the global capitalist economy. FED Chairman Ben Bernanke repeated on many times that the Federal remained highly accommodative. So, the banks and the major finance houses influence the political world. The extent of that accommodation can be seen in the expansion of the Fed’s asset holdings. Last week alone they increased by $14.1 billion, taking the total to $4 trillion—up from $870 billion in 2008. The Fed’s holdings of financial assets are now greater in size than the entire US budget and larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of Germany, the world’s third largest economy. The FED has expanded its balance sheet. Bernanke suggested that a new financial crisis could come, because there is a rapid expansion of the Fed's balance sheet (along with the increased holdings of the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. They are engaging in their own version of QE). “As the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve gets large, managing that balance sheet, exiting from that balance sheet, becomes more difficult,” he said. This is because any significant diminution of monetary stimulus, and consequent return to higher interest rates, means a fall in the value of the financial assets held by central banks, since interest rates and bond prices move in opposite directions. This poses the danger of significant losses. Early in 2013, there was research done by the IMF. The research found that there were the potential losses at 4 percent of GDP for the U.S. Fed, 7.5 percent for the Bank of Japan, and almost 6 percent for the Bank of England. A new financial crisis could come if it is created by the QE program itself. It would be even more severe than the meltdown of 2008. The world's central banks would be directly impacted if it came this year. We see financial assets growing rapidly, but the real economy is barely expanding. We see investment falling. There is growth in some markets and increased production, but lax investment. Last July, the Financial Times Lex column pointed to what it called “the depressed state of global corporate capital expenditure.” Even though companies were sitting on cash holdings estimated to be around $4 trillion, capital expenditure was expected to fall in real terms this year, and could even drop by 5 per cent in 2014. Capital spending is being hated on by some banks, hedge funds, and investment houses. Some corporations are using their cash holdings not for investment, but to finance share buybacks. This can boost share prices and create conditions for reaping increased profits via stock market trading. According to data released last week, US companies are spending more on buying back their own shares than at any time since 2008. The FED's policies are growing the economic cancer. That is why some want to end the status quo and create independent solutions like break up the big banks, allowing the people and the workers to control more of the economy, and ending the bad policies from the financial oligarchy.








When you research the information of the real world, you see the power structure. The power structure of the modern world uses think tanks, NGOs, and other organizations to stir the policies of neoliberalism and globalization. There are thousands of NGOs worldwide and many hundreds of influential people are in them. Think tanks have a key role in making policy decisions or elaborating on them. Their members establish links with government figures. Many of these think tanks leaders are members or have ties to the Pilgrims, the 1001 Club, the American Security Council, Le Cercle, and other like minded organizations. Joël van der Reijden made an excellent way to organize Western power structure into the Liberal Establishment (that deals with banking, commerce, and the State Department), the Conservative Establishment (that is focused on the Pentagon, the CIA, and other more reactionary establishment forces), the Vatican-Paneuropa network (filled with the Jesuits, Opus Dei, the Knights of Malta, etc.), and the Zionist establishment. The Liberal establishment has a strong influence on the Republican and Democratic establishment system in America. Also, Pilgrim Society members (one of the most powerful groups on the Earth today) dominated both parties spanning decades. The Pilgrims John Foster Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, Dean Rusk, Cyrus Vance, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others were in both Democratic and Republican Presidential administrations. Rockefeller interests dominate American politics too. The liberal Rockefeller establishment is both Republican and Democrat. The masses are encouraged to debate about creationism vs evolution, Medicare and tax rates, but when it comes to long-term foreign policy, from economic integration to the War on Terror, the same agenda keeps going no matter who is in office. Regardless of who is in office, now, the war on terror continues, foreign interventions occur, and the eroding of our precious civil liberties continues unhindered. Also, we should investigate the balance of power between the CIA elites, the State Department, and the international Zionist movement. The Republican Party is interesting to investigate too. The Republican Party is split now. They have the Rockefeller Republicans and a conservative wing. The conservative wing is divided among the neoconservatives (who are pro-Israel) and the old school traditional right wing (the problem is that this wing has been dominated by the CIA, the Pentagon, and the American Security Council for years and decades). Also, in this new generation, we have to deal with retired CIA and defense department elites being involved in advanced technologies (via corporations like TRW, Lockheed, Northrop, SAIC, Raytheon, United Technologies, ManTech, IN-Q-Tel, Defense Group Inc. and Global Technology Partners). These groups and corporations have ties to neoconservatives, the CIA, the Pentagon, and like minded organizations. At the end of the day, the total Western establishment is hostile to real economic justice, real labor unions, and real rights sent to the poor including the middle class (except for token concessions).






I like music from all across the world. I love African music truly too. I love the music from Fatoumata Diawara. She sings about her relatives, Mali, Africa in general, and other subjects. She has a beautiful voice and she knows how to use a guitar in an exquisite fashion. She was born in the Ivory Coast to Malian parents. She was born in 1982. So, she is one year older than I am. She knows how to speak African languages and French since she lived in France to act. She is a very Beautiful Sister inside and out. I love she tries to sing about ending ethnic tensions in Africa, because at the end of the day, we don't need war. We need more unity and more just cooperation in Africa, so Africa can be strengthened in a legitimate fashion. I love her songs entitled, "Bissa", "Kele","Kanou", and so many of her other songs. I like South African musicians too. I love the music from the Sarafina soundtrack (from the movie that came about many years ago). I love the music from Brenda Fassie. She sings about love and other uplifting subject matter that I enjoy. As many human beings realize, I love uplifting or inspirational music in my life. I am 30 years old now, so a Brother has to expand his mind and just love righteousness. I love the songs of Brenda Fassie called "Vulindlela","My Wedding Day", etc. She passed away, so RIP Brenda Fassie. The music from Yvonne Chaka Chaka is incredible too. Miriam Makeba was a great innovator of African music too. She not only had a great voice and song excellent music. She supported the anti-apartheid music and was courageous to speak out in favor for the justice of black South African human beings (and by extension the equality among all of the human family). She was strong and worked with musicians from across genres as a means to fight apartheid. In her lifetime, she saw the reactionary apartheid regime to end. She saw many changes in the globe and I greatly respect her legacy and actions. RIP to Miriam Makeba. The Senegalese band named Touré Kunda are activists for the homeless and children’s rights. Also, it is important to note the beauty of black musical talent globally beyond the great talent that is found in the States. At the end of the day, we are all humans. We are all human beings seeking justice, wisdom, and end to oppression in the world. The Brothers and the Sisters doing what is right and showing their gifts in the world (especially to positively impact the lives of their neighbors) ought to be respected to the fullest. 












There is a lot of information about the late President John F. Kennedy that some in the public doesn't know about. The establishment from the CIA and the State Department did not like many of his views at all. Many of the major banks and news outlets hated his views before he was unfortunately assassinated. We know that President Kennedy apologized for the involvement of Eisenhower and the CIA in the 1957 and the 1958 PRRI-Permesta rebellion in Indonesia. Kennedy became a supporter of the progressive or left wing Sukarno government. He allowed Indonesia to have billions of dollars of civilian and military aid. In 1965, Suharto caused Sukarno to not have power via CIA support. Suharto started a mass extermination campaign against suspected "Communists." John F. Kennedy supported the failed April 1961 coup against Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar. Salazar was supported by the CIA and the Cercle group. In 1975, after Salazar died, the State Department (under the leadership of Henry Kissinger and the local ambassador CIA officer Frank Carlucci) supported the reactionary counter coup of Antonio de Spinola. Spinola was a visitor of Le Cercle against the moderate forces that had taken over the government. JFK forced Park Chung-hee of South Korea to restore civilian rule a year after his May 1961 coup against the left wing government. Chung-hee and his cousin Kim Jong-pil had just established the KCIA and were supported by the Moonie Cult. CIA support in the coup has been suspected and certainly in later years the KCIA, the Moonies, the Yakuza, the CIA and private groups as the American Security Council became close allies. John F. Kennedy wanted a long term diplomatic solution with North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which was in contrast to the agenda of the CIA and the military. In Italy, the late President John F. Kennedy sympathized with Partito Socialista Italiano. After the April 1963 election, the party received a number of cabinet posts under the moderate Christian Democrat Aldo Moro. The leader of the PSI, Pietro Nenni, became Moro's vice prime minister. When Kennedy visited Italy in July 1963 he was wary about the communists, but embraced Nenni. The CIA leadership and even the State Department were greatly worried about these developments. The CIA station chief in Italy William Harvey was banished to Rome, because he undermined Kennedy's policy toward Cuba. Harvey was running secret Gladio armies trying to discredit both the communists and the socialists. His deputy was American Security Council supporter Vernon Walters. A decade later, Aldo Moro was kidnapped and murdered as part of the U.S. sanctioned purge of leftist folks in the Italian government. Kennedy was an ally of Prime Ministers Patrice Lumumba and Cyrille Adoula in the Congo. After Lumumba was murdered, the CIA backed Tshombe and then Mobutu in the Congo. Kennedy supported Kwame Nkrumah of Kenya (he was overthrown in 1966 with help from the CIA for being too close to the Soviet cam). Kennedy supported the independence of Guinea. Kennedy by early 1963 wanted to end the Cold War with the policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Some of the oil men became even opponents of Kennedy after his introduction of the 1962 Kennedy Act, increasing the tax burden on oil corporations. Also, in a speech on January 17, 1963, Kennedy seems to have hinted that he was going to end the oil depletion allowance. So, when you look at the truth, you see that the late President was more courageous than once assumed. 
















Now, Christmas is an unique holiday. The truth should be shown in season and out of season. Now, there is nothing wrong with helping humanity, praying, worshipping God, respecting the ancestors, and having a great time during December 25. This doesn't mean that folks can't say Happy Holidays to fellow human beings. That is fine. Yet, the origin of Christmas has different origins than what some assume. A lot of people do not understand the origin of the historical customs and traditions of Christmas. The OT prophet Jeremiah is very clear that we should not learn the way of the heathen. We don't need to cut down a tree from the forest, and deck it with silver and gold to have a relationship with our friends, family, God, etc. So, using a tree for pagan rituals is wrong. We know that the ancient Romans celebrated a feast called Saturnalia where they worshipped the god Saturn. It came about from December 17th to the 24th. It related to the ending of the winter solstice or the time of seasonal pagan worship. Then on the 25th of December, they began the new Celebration of "The birth of the unconquerable Sun," as the days of light would now begin to lengthen and the sun would now begin to regain its dominance. The sun would come from the death as the solstice ended by the revolving of the Earth in Earth. This is the origin of Christmas. The Roman Catholic Church accepted this day as called it Christmas. Christmas combines Christ and Mass. The Mass is the Catholic celebration where the Vatican believes that the literal blood and body of Jesus Christ is eaten via communion (This is not found in Scripture or science at all. In other words, the concept of the Mass is a man-made doctrine). So, when anyone talks about Christmas, it definitely about the Mass of the Vatican. That is why the Vatican has a Mass in the morning of Christmas every year. Bishop Liberius of Rome in ca. 354 A.D. wanted people to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on December 25. We are not even required to observe the Lord's Birthday at all. There is no conclusive evidence that Jesus Christ was even born in December 25th. Each day should be treated as a special day to follow truth and follow righteousness. Yule is related to Wicca as it is one of their Sabbats of the Wiccan year. We know that the mistletoe is a plant used to represent fertility by the ancient Druids. Santa Claus is found in Catholic lore and it is found in the pagan world from the Norse traditions as well. So, these idolatrous, materialist qualities of Christmas show the fruits of the corporate, materialist version of Christmas being degenerate. We should not follow the way of the haters nor materialist folks. We should follow true spirituality and true wisdom. Now, many folks do not know of these things, so we should be compassionate to educate human beings on the truth of Christmas. God is merciful, so we should be merciful with humanity. We ought to not to be compromisers. We should never be arrogant whence describing information, because there was a time when we all were extremely ignorant about issues. Arrogance is folly. Humility, strength, understanding, and compassion are real concepts that anyone of us should live by. We should keep on living holy and believe in justice for the human race.






By Timothy