Monday, January 20, 2014

Dr. Martin Luther King's Holiday in 2014


During this important holiday, we meditate. We realize the sacrifice of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Brothers and Sisters who fought for human liberation. The struggle of black people always dealt with fighting for liberation, seeing & opposing class oppression, and exposing the racist white power structure in the world today. One of the best ways to honor the memory of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is to pray for self-improvement and to do service in our daily lives. Serving humanity in a legitimate fashion is great. That action teaches humility, strength, tolerance, and compassion in general. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in a middle class background in 1929, but by 1968, he greatly understood the plight of the poor in the world. He married Coretta Scott King (who was a very intelligent, Strong Sister) and raised numerous strong children. He worked to protest discrimination and human injustice. The Birmingham Bus Boycott in 1954 caused a great victory in the cause of ending Jim Crow segregation. His house was bombed, but he had a great resiliency as a means for him to carry onward his journey for human liberation. He was never alone. Many unsung heroes and other brave human beings among many backgrounds worked with him too. Their memories should be respected as well. Dr. King became more revolutionary as time came into his life. He suffered jail, threats, attacks, and his house being bombed. So, he was a very courageous man. He was a revolutionary, because he fought for radical change in society. He was never satisfied with the status quo at all. Men, women, and children prayed to God while protesting for freedom for it is Lord that grants human beings real liberty. The Lord is the true sustainer and Savior of all human life. Dr. Martin Luther was courageous to oppose the Vietnam War too. He explained fully on why he opposed the unjust Vietnam War in eloquent terminology. He spoke of the Vietnam War's history from the end of World War II to the 1960's. He opposed the reactionary Diem, because Diem was violating the religious liberty rights of the Buddhists. He opposed the burning of the huts of a village and other destructive policies that contributed to imperialism and not peace. He understood that when you spent billions of dollars of money on militarism while not adequately helping the poor in America, then there is a moral problem with that reality. He died in the midst of fighting for economic justice in Memphis. His memory lives on. His ideals of fighting for right, opposing unjust laws and being for justice lives on in us today. He spoke the truth on Vietnam when he gave his public denunciation of the war at the Riverside Church in Harlem in April of 1967. The reactionaries opposed his stand on the war including the liberal Democratic Party establishment back then. President Lyndon Johnson disagreed with Dr. King on the Vietnam War too. In 1957, Time magazine had named King its "Man of the Year." After his 1967 speech, it ran an article called "Confusing the Cause," which chastised King for daring to speak about something other than civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered exactly one year after he gave his speech at Riverside Church. In 1968, he wanted social democratic solutions to the problems of America, which are still beyond what the Democratic Party then and now is prepared to accept. He realized that to revolutionize society, there much be radical economic and social changes in the world. Economic inequality must be defeated. Real equality must be done via the costing the end of the current system of oppression. He knew that Jim Crow in the South was opposed by the same politicians who maintained segregated slums of the North. He wanted to have a multiracial coalition to end poverty in America via an Economic bill of Rights and a national guaranteed annual income for all Americans.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 was a whole lot different from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from 1954. He was right to say that we are BLACK AND BEAUTIFUL. He grew more revolutionary as time went on in his life and that revolutionary spirit is respected by me. He was right to say that we should oppose racism, materialism, and militarism. He died while legitimately fighting for the rights of sanitation workers to have basic worker rights (and union recognition) inside of the great, talented city of Memphis, Tennessee. His life reminds us that helping our neighbors is important and love is superior to hate. Love is a very powerful force indeed. 

It has been more than 50 years after the War on Poverty. It was a continuation of the New Deal programs from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt including the Four Freedoms of 1941. The popularity of the war on poverty waned after the 1960's. It ended after criticism of welfare and folks wanting to see deregulation (these views are loved by notorious reactionaries). There have been massive cuts to federal aid to impoverished human beings in the 1980's and the 1990's. Bill Clinton passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. The late historian Professor Tony Judt said that the Bill Clinton law was Orwellian and did a lot of decline the popularity of the Great Society. It caused more folks to reject even a minimum standard for all citizens and social liberalism. There are many policies that still exist as a result of the Great Society like Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America, TRIO, and Job Corps. The economy recovered a great deal by 1964 when the poverty rate fallen form 22.4 percent in 1959 to 19 percent in 1964. Dr. Martin Luther King in 1967 said that the War on Poverty was too piecemeal since he said that the programs created under the "war on poverty" such as "housing programs, job training and family counseling" all had "a fatal disadvantage the programs have never proceeded on a coordinated basis... at no time has a total, coordinated and fully adequate program been conceived." In his speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New City, King connected the war in Vietnam with the "war on poverty." He believed that the war in Vietnam prevented many resources to adequately fund the war on poverty. Dr. King also said that: "...and you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such." He created the Poor People's Campaign as a means to address the shortcomings of the war on poverty and fight poverty. So, we know that getting people out of poverty is one of the most cost effective public investments. It is one of the greatest ways to grow the economy in general. We see a decline in welfare benefits from 1962 to 2006 as a result of a decreased support in government War on Poverty initiatives. In the decade following the 1964 introduction of the war on poverty, poverty rates in the U.S. dropped to their lowest level since comprehensive records began in 1958: from 17.3% in the year the Economic Opportunity Act was implemented to 11.1% in 1973. They have remained between 11 and 15.2% ever since. Many programs like Social Security, etc. have reduced the elderly poverty rate massively form 44 percent to 9 percent today. Today, many of the middle class are in risk of being the new poor. Economic inequality is still very high. That is why we should allow the super-rich to pay their fair share and need unfair tax breaks. We should expand Social Security. We need single payer healthcare. We should increase state supported education. We need to strengthen real regulations. We need to restore total rights of workers like collective bargaining and protection from wage theft. Austerity ought to be rejected. Access to voting and the rights of minorities plus women ought to be protected as well. We should aggressively attack unemployment and public efforts should step to fight unemployment when all other efforts fail.

Architecture is important in the world. There is the famous New Masonic Temple in St. Louis, Missouri. It was built in 1926. It has many images that deal with Classical Revival architecture, which deals with many buildings built for Freemason meeting places. It looks very similar to the House of the Temple building in Washington, D.C. and it has great differences as well. The location is designated as a city landmark. Visitors can go into the temple, but only on the days when a meeting is held. The Pear Tree Inn Union Station -St. Louis and Courtyard St. Louis Downtown are the closet hotels to the New Masonic Temple. The Temple builders' studied Greek, Roman, and Gothic modernist architecture before settling on the Grecian model. We know that the temple's exterior is of the Greek Ionic style with its simple lines, towering proportions, and overall monumental size. The top of the temple was influenced by the Parthenon of Greece (that celebrated the goddess Athena). There are columns that line the Lindell Street entrance to the temple. The lower parts of the exterior have other items as well. They are adorned with images of compasses, squares, and other Masonic emblems. There are two Latin phrases and an image of Mercury. Mercury is the messenger of the ancient Roman gods. Mercury is mythology gave light to the Earth. There are a sphinx and a few griffins on the building. The griffins are found on the ends of the south pediment and the corners of the second terrace. All of these features make the New Masonic Temple a very prominent building and have placed it amongst the greatest buildings in the world. It is a famous building in the city of St. Louis. It was built in the 1920's. The temple has stood the test of time and is very durable architecturally. 


The Democrats and the Republicans agree with the White House's police state spying agenda. The White House is adamantly in defense of the illegal spying of the National Security Agency demonstrates. They just want cosmetic changes or reform not revolution. The NSA has shown illegal anti-democratic and anti-constitutional rights. They are allied with the Western elite. There are many leading congressional Democrats and Republicans including former intelligence officials were unanimous in supporting both President Barack Obama's speech and the NSA's operations. Three so-called critics of NSA spying, Democratic senators Mark Udall, Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, issued a joint statement hailing Obama’s speech as “a major milestone in our longstanding efforts to reform the National Security Agency’s bulk collection program,” as though the cosmetic gestures towards civil liberties represented genuine concessions. The most adamant defenders of the NSA programs, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, appeared together on the NBC program “Meet the Press” to support the NSA. They disagree with Edward Snowden or the former NSA contractor who showed the illegal mass spying the NSA. Obviously, Snowden is not the devil neither he is this perfect person. He is the fruit of the evils found in the NSA. Retired General Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA and later the CIA, appeared on Fox News Sunday and hailed the speech as “the most robust defense of why we conduct intelligence and how we conduct intelligence that the president has made since he’s been in office.” He dismissed the alterations proposed by President Obama as insignificant. There should be no compromise with oppression. Either we live in a freedom filled society or live under police state surveillance. It is as simple as that. We know for a fact that state spying has been used for the purposes of political profiling and police repression for decades. Many of the proposals from the White House are not very specific and vague on implementation. Still, we have our civil liberties violation and the surveillance state grows in the world not just in America. The 45 minute speech of President Barack Obama conceded nothing to the mass opposition to NSA spying. The text of the Fourth Amendment reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” We know that the actions of the NSA are antithesis of this. The system of white supremacy has continued this policy of surveillance long before Barack Obama was elected as President. For decades, the NSA has collected personal information on tons of Americans all of the time and information on even foreign governments. This information is owned by computer banks and political dossiers on Americans are in existence now. The police state should be fought against period.

I love to show advice. In this generation period, we can learn ways to protect ourselves and be careful. This is not about being paranoid about life. It is about being wise and using commonsense in our lives. You have the right to not ally with folks that reject LIFE. Life is valuable in the Universe. A waste of time is not part of our time, so I just keep it moving when folks hate on me. I am a human being, so I don't dwell on the negativity. Putting life into perspective and fighting for growth are great things to enact. Karma will come to those who slander folks and so forth. We are here for a temporary period of time. So, that is why we ally with real people. We love greatly our families and we cherish the authentic bonds among the human family. We can handle disagreement excluding adolescent, demagogic rhetoric too. Our gifts are precious. My gifts deal with teaching, dealing with spirituality, and enriching the lives of humanity. So, we should never feed our spirits with negative energy. We just should continue to live our lives and to do basic, comprehensive actions that maintain the fabric of our souls. Yes, I do root for humanity to be better. My humanitarian side comes from my mother. My more political side comes from father. So, I can be sensitive and be political too. You just have to let folks who desire that negative energy to be to themselves. We just focus on positive energy, hope, human compassion, and human dignity. We are on this Earth for less than 130 years. So, a real human being would never want to restrict the gifts or the total human potential of another human being at all. A real human being will want human beings to achieve their great potential, to live, to grow, and to achieve excellence contributions in the sphere of human society. When we all have that affirmation of hope and the affirmation of action, then we can see glorious changes in the lives of humanity. For long centuries, our ancestors suffered unspeakable injustices, yet we are still here. We are here and we continue to fight for our just liberation. So, we are here to continue to carry forward the efforts of our ancestors. We carry onward the efforts to eradicate poverty, bigotry, and any injustice in the world. Also, in life, the RIGHTEOUS WILL GROW as time goes on. The folks who slander others and issue disgraceful words about those that disagree will be exposed for the world to see. Most of us want to live in freedom and with respect. When fake people try to test the wrong one, the truth just comes out (from the real person) and the fake people are easily refuted. Whining gets played out at the end of the day. In the final analysis, you get busy living or you get busy going nowhere. Going forward and moving on are better actions than slandering people, whining, or embracing a defeatist attitude. A victorious attitude will carry real HUMAN BEINGS places. There is always love for our communities and a continued focused for liberation. 


By Timothy

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