News and Regulations.

Ariel Sharon's funeral was a historic time. Many folks paid homage to the war criminal. He was once an Israeli general and former Prime Minister of Israel. Many people in the funeral were political establishment figures and proponents of the same imperialism that Ariel Sharon advanced. The folks there included U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There were delegations from just 21 countries that attended the official service in Jerusalem, which was greatly downplayed in the global media. The funeral allowed human beings to expressed admiration for Sharon. Ariel Sharon was a serial war criminal. We know about his support of aggressive massacred and targeted assassinations of Palestinians accompanied by the land of Palestinian land on a massive scale. We see that the political and the mainstream media have shown a degree of restraint in expressing their respect for a man that was justifiably opposed by the millions of opposed human beings (and workers) in the Middle East including globally. Biden spoke on behalf of U.S. imperialism. Blair is the mouthpiece of the former regional colonial power of Great Britain. Both of them have an interest in covering up the crimes of Sharon. The reason is that both of their nations supported Sharon and employed many of the same methods as part of their foreign policy agenda. No foreign head of state participated and only one government leader, Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok. There were no delegations officially listed from the Middle East, Africa or Latin America. Two foreign ministers were on hand, those of Germany and Australia. Other ministers or deputy ministers were present from Italy, Bulgaria, Britain, Holland, Singapore, the Philippines, France, Canada, Romania, Greece and Cyprus, along with the chairman of the Russian Duma. During the ceremony, there were no references to the many crimes of Ariel Sharon. According to media reports, few ordinary Israelis came to bid farewell to Sharon. Sharon was involved in the massacre of women and children in the Jordanian village of Qibya and events in Lebanon too. Ariel Sharon also was known for his reactionary, free market social policies. He opposed to the struggle of working class struggles, etc. He became Israel's largest private farm owner in a country that ranks among the worse in the world for poverty and inequality. After yesterday’s proceedings, Sharon was buried on his 1,000-acre property near the Gaza Strip. Biden said that Sharon's death was like a death in the family. Blair led British troops to fight the U.S. led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003. He admired Sharon. Blair also worked as an envoy for the failed 2007 Middle East peace process (it was sponsored by the U.S., the UN, the EU and Russia). Many in the two party system of Republicans and Democrats love Ariel Sharon. It tells me that too many Democrats like tons of Republicans are loves the interests of Wall Street, Netanyahu called Sharon as an Israeli founding father. Sharon was not really trying to find peace. He wanted to confine Palestinians to ghettos and did not want imperialism to die. Sharon was part of the overall imperialism agenda that caused the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and the drive to overthrow the Syrian government too.

The West Virginia chemical disaster is a tragedy. There was the release of a toxic coal treatment chemical into the drinking water of nine counties in West Virginia. This caused the shutting off water supplies for over 300,000 people for five days. This is a result of systematic gutting of corporate regulations in the United States. These industrial disasters are a result of ending necessary regulations. The leak originated in a chemical storage facility. The facility was run by Freedom Industries. It deals with the full service producer of specialty chemicals for mining, steel, and cements industries. The facility was poorly maintained. It is located less than two miles up Elk River from Charleston. Charleston is West Virginia's capital city and West Virginia's largest city. It is about a mile upstream from the American Water intake center. That center services nine surrounding counties. Charleston residents noticed a sweet smell Thursday morning. That was caused by the release of the chemical crude 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM). Residents called the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection or the DEP. Investigators located the leak in about 2 hours later. By that time, about 7,500 gallons had been leaked out a 40,000 gallon tank. The spill formed a 400 square foot pool on the floor of the facility and leaked out through a hole in the secondary concrete barrier designed to prevent chemicals from entering the nearby river. The Department of Environmental Protection investigators told the Charleston Gazette that when they arrived, they saw “Freedom Industries had set up one cinder block and used one 50-pound bag of some sort of safety absorbent powder to try to block the chemical flow.” One DEP official told the Gazette the company “did not give any real attention to containment.” There have been only a few tens of thousands of the 300,000 residents affected so far. They had been told that their tap water was potable. The rest continue to live under duress of living without water for bathing or drinking. They have to wait in long lines for bottled water distributed by the National Guard. State environmental protection officials said that the facility had only been inspected three times since 1991. Investigators visited the site in 2010 after complaints about a chemical odor and again in 2012 to see if it was carrying out any new processes that required permits. In both cases, regulators did not inspect the condition of the storage tanks. The only permit that the company was required to have was one for industrial storm weather runoff according to CNN. “Basically they had to monitor the runoff from the rain and send us the results every quarter. Those were the only regulatory requirements,” DEP head Randy Huffman told the news outlet. This is a lack of government regulation. The spill is the third major chemical accident to take place in the Charleston metropolitan area in the last five years. 2 workers died in 2008 as a result of explosions at a Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, West Virginia. 2 years later, another worker died after a DuPont chemical plant in Belle, West Virginia released toxic gas. Both of these incidents happened within 15 miles of the location of the latest spill along a stretch of the Kanawha River called "Chemical Valley." Environmental disasters have occurred in West Virginia as a means to maintain profit drive and negligence of the coal mining companies that have economically and politically dominated West Virginia. In 1972, a coal slurry dam owned by Pittston Coal burst—four days after having been declared “satisfactory” by a federal mine inspector, something happened. The dam released more than one hundred million gallons of black wastewater on 16 coal mining hamlets in Buffalo Creek Hollow. After the disaster—which killed 125 people and left 4,000 out of a population 5,000 people homeless—Pittston officials declared it was an “Act of God.” The coal mining has struggled for health and safety standard improvements in West Virginia. Many of their demands have been betrayed by the United Mine Workers union. Big corporations benefit from this exploitation. The former Governor of West Virginia was Jay Rockefeller, who is the great-grandson of the oil tycoon. Many of these disasters have come by corporate deregulation over the decades. Some even Democrats have shielded companies like BP, Massey, and the Wall Street banks responsible for the 2008 crash from prosecution. In his 2012 State of the Union address, Obama boasted that, “I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.” Between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state agencies, there are only 2,200 inspectors responsible for enforcing the safety of 130 million workers in America. This translates to about one inspector for every 59,000 workers. As a result of the bipartisan “sequester” cuts the number of OSHA inspectors is scheduled to fall even further. We have a plutocracy now since America is heavily dominated by a small group of multi-billionaires who control ever part of the government and rule the lives of the people instead of a true democracy. We need to advance the general welfare beyond just private profit. 

There is the issue of the nation of South Sudan. One issue in South Sudan is how the Western Empire contributed to the creation of South Sudan and it controls heavily its political system. Now, I don't agree with the racism and bigotry found in Sudan against black people, but the West loves to use divide and conquer strategies in Africa. There is the continued conflict between Sudan and south Sudan. The divisions in Sudan have been agitated by Western factions. Sudan is a very large area of Africa geographically. Sudan is mostly Muslim in the North. Southern Sudan and the nation of South Sudan are mostly Christian and animist. Sudan joined the Arab league immediately upon independence. Now, Israel made mistakes and the Muslim Arabic states made mistakes. Israel is in error to try to cause divisions in the Muslim world for the sake of increasing political hegemony. The Muslim Arabic states are wrong for having some of its people to deny the black African cultural roots in Sudan, to permit slavery in Sudan, and to allow laws that violate fundamental human rights (including religious liberty rights). John Garang rose to the leader of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. He received military training in Israel in 1970 or the time during Sudan's first civil war. However, Garang favored keeping the South in federation with a united Sudan. In 2005, under a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Garang became vice president of the whole of Sudan and premier of the southern part of the country. He died in a mysterious helicopter crash six months later. Garang was succeeded by Salva Kiir, who sports a black cowboy hat given to him by President Bush, in 2006. Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceuticals factory in the capital city of Khartoum in 1998. He falsely claimed that it was a chemical weapons facility. He wanted to see Sudan dismembered. When Bush Jr. was in office, he and Israel gave arms and training to rebel groups in Darfur. Darfur is to the West of Sudan. This was another front in the civil war. South Sudan was created and Sudan lost most of its oil resources. South Sudan is now having rival military warlords fighting. America is considering having the UN to control the nation with oversight over its economy and oil fields. Another establishment foreign policy “expert,” G. Pascal Zachary, calls on the United States to assume “trusteeship” of South Sudan, including control of its military and police. That action would be a violation of national sovereignty obviously. This is similar to Haiti being ruled heavily by the United Nations (and whose resources are influenced by the United States, France, Canada, and other corporate interests). South Sudan is now being used and exploited by the imperialism now. 

What PS106 is having is disgraceful conditions. It deals with the failure of the system. The most important priority in an educational system is the children. The children have the primary priority. The story signifies the failure of the SYSTEM. The SYSTEM is broken as it pertains to the conditions of PS106. The principal Marcella Sims obviously doesn't care about the students there as she is not doing her job. At least Joe Clark in real life cared for children and used radical means to improve the conditions in his school decades ago. Being in a low income area is filled with poverty. The poor are regularly disrespected and scapegoated by mainstream society. Most of the poor care for their children for real. It is that being in a poor environment has caused lax resources, massive budget cuts, lax textbooks, and other complications that contribute to the crisis in PS106. Wealthier areas don't have these problems in their schools (public or private). So, we have to address poverty and the social conditions in poorer communities as a means to make a DIFFERENCE. It is so easy to condemn the parents, but many parents there are doing what is right and lack resources. Some parents are failing their duties too, but who says that mentoring or assisting parents are out of the equating. There is nothing in our rule book that says that we can't be CREATIVE in establishing solutions. A solution should be comprehensive, radical, and revolutionary, since we have a radical problem here. We can't be satisfied with some children in poor areas having a better education than other children in poor areas. All children should have the opportunity to have a great EDUCATION. It is not the parents' fault totally or the teachers' fault totally or the children's fault totally for what happened in PS106. Everyone has a responsibility in this situation and it is our responsibilities to make this situation RIGHT. This incident is brutal and immoral. I feel for Pearl Pearson and his family. They have no respect for our elders when they beat the deaf Brother Pearl Pearson viciously. What more evidence is there to prove that there is an epidemic of police brutality in the world, not just in the States. Crooked police are the enforcers of the system of white supremacy as edud greatly mentioned. They or crooked police murdered our Brothers and the Sisters in the streets without cause for a very long time. This man never merited to be beaten like this at all. He was not threatening or harming anyone. If they treated a deaf man like this, then they have no respect for us as a people. The cops involved in this BLATANT INJUSTICE should be fired beyond just some suspension. A real investigation is needed too. Justice should be served. The crooked cop supporters have no license to lecture anyone on law and order when crooked cops OBEY NO REAL LAW AND THEY ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF ORDER. We should do everything in our power to fight colorism and to respect human beings of any skin hue. Also, it is very true that Black is Beautiful of all shades from light, brown, and to dark. Folks have to eliminate evil, false biases from their minds completely. The truth is that we should oppose discrimination against darker skinned black human beings and any human being. We have to think in a mature fashion to respect our neighbor and to judge humanity on the basis of their character not on the color of one's skin. Folks should respect black humanity. This fight will not be easy, but it is righteous fight to enact. The "Dark Girls" documentary is a powerful film that talks about how colorism has harmed human beings emotionally and psychologically. We all express sympathy to those who suffered abuse and mistreatment, because they are darker skinned. That abuse is evil and abhorrent. We have to see the truth that dynamic, intelligent, honorable, and strong human beings exist in every skin complexion and that dark skinned Brothers and Sisters should be treated with dignity and respect too. WHEN WE ARE REAL AND DO THE RIGHT THING, THEN REAL CHANGE WILL COME. In the final analysis, all of the people should have justice.

It is a shame, but it is true that THEY (or those in the establishment) DON'T CARE ABOUT US. They certainly exploit us, disrespect us, and seek to take our resources, but they don't really care about us. Many political leaders could care less about the interests of black people. They care for so-called ideological purity than the needs of the people, especially black people. They love corporate interests and the interests of others, but they whine every time when we as a people voice our views in favor of just real fights against discrimination, fights against police brutality, and other legitimate actions. That is why when any BLACK PERSON CONDEMNS AND EXPOSES THE SYSTEM OF WHITE SUPREMACY; many folks will oppose that black person (when he or she is only legitimately exposing the crimes of the oppressor). The unemployment benefits situation represents how many politicians have a lack of care for even a minuscule amount of funds sent to the unemployed. This is not 400 billion dollars, but only a few billion dollars over the course of one year. Obviously, folks will suffer if these benefits are not extended. All of us see now that the establishment uses trillions to fund big banks. They are cutting necessary services via austerity. They are also funding imperialism resulting in Western military aggression worldwide. These things have nothing to do with promoting the interests of the black community at all. We see that the mainstream liberal establishment has been lax in battle as well. We know that the reactionaries are wrong on so many issues. Many who claim to be on the "Left" refuse to push for the redistribute land and wealth and have the nationalization of the economy. Back decades ago, many folks lead strikes, led massive anti-war rallies, and came on the scene to protest fascism. There have been some good today with the increase of the minimum wage to $11.50 in Washington D.C. and other things. Independent coalitions then and in the future can be used to crush oppression and end the system of white supremacy once and for it. It will not be easy, but human beings have to do something as a means to have real change in the world. 

By Timothy