Weekend News

The U.S. bipartisan austerity budget includes the slashing of food stamps and the weakening of corporate regulations. It is what you expect. It is what it is. The U.S. Senate approved the $1.1 trillion budget on Thursday. It will make permanent the majority of last year's sequester cuts. The deal will increase federal employee pension contributions and weakening corporate regulations. The budget vote follows the Christmas cutoff of extended jobless benefits for 1.3 million workers. It will cut an additional 9 billion from food stamp benefits. The Senate easily approved the budget in a 72-26 vote, with 17 Republicans joining all 53 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats to approve the bill. The Senate’s passage of the budget followed an overwhelming “yes” vote Wednesday in the House of Representatives, which passed the measure by a margin of 359-67. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law by Saturday. The Senate accelerated its normal procedures to push the bill through. The vote was held only three days after the release on Monday of the 1,582 page measure. Most Senators voted without having read the legislation. The budget funds the federal government through September 30 or at the end of the current fiscal year. It allocates 1.1 trillion dollars in discretionary spending. That is a huge reduction from 2009 when the discretionary spending was about 1.5 trillion dollars. The difference deals with the result of cuts in social spending. More than half of the money that is allocated goes to the Pentagon. The Pentagon receives $520 billion plus an additional $92 billion for military operations in Afghanistan and in other places. The bill flows form the bipartisan budget agreement reached on December 10. The deal only restored a small fraction of the more than 1 trillion dollars in cuts scheduled over the next 10 years (as part of the sequester spending reduction process). This framework for across the board cuts were agreed to by the White House and the Congressional Republicans in 2011. It took effect last March of 2013. The extension of the unemployment benefits are in doubt. There are regressive consumption taxes in the form of user fees. This action will grow costs for federal civilian workers' pensions. Others want cuts in retirement benefits for military employees, and further cuts in Medicare spending. The December agreement cut spending for federal retirement benefits by $12 billion over ten years. It raised $12.6 billion by increasing security fees for airline passengers and another $8 billion by charging higher fees for insuring private-sector pensions. The current budget is reactionary and anti-working class. Discretionary social spending as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product is at its lowest level since the 1950's. Republicans and Democrats are more reactionary on economics. Wall Street executives like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is happy about the deal. There are corporate oversight cuts that prevent the EPA from regulating methane pollution. There are cuts to the National Institutes of Health. The budget deal is not an example of political gridlock. It is about two corporate controlled parties united in attack the social blessings of society. We know the bankruptcy of Detroit, health care being gutted, and other evils are threats that grow social inequality.


Gentrification is evil for many reasons. It deals with racial oppression and class oppression too. Gentrification causes many long term residents to be pushed out since gentrification causes rising rents and housing costs. Many residents have a diversity of views on the issue. As a result of gentrification, higher income human beings move into neighborhood while poor citizens are forced to leave. On many times, more white people are moving in into such urban areas. This is happening in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and other places all over the world. Gentrification is the fruit of capitalism. Capitalism deals with the relentless pursuit of profit. There may be improvement in the lives of the wealthy and privileged, but the displacement of the long time residents as well. The working class of New York city make the city what it is. Many folks involved in gentrification are from suburban communities and want to move into an urban lifestyle. There are larger economic and political forces that nourish gentrification. Poor neighborhoods are readily targeted for gentrification. The owners of capital wants to make a neighborhood more valuable for the richer human beings. There is cultural exploitation, racial displacement, and a lust for profit that relates to gentrification. So, land, housing, and any commodity is milked for a profit by the elites. In an article he co-authored with Michelle LeFaivre called "A Class Analysis of Gentrification,", Smith explains after the Second World War, there was a mass movement of capital to the suburbs, where in contrast to the city, land was cheaper, little development existed, and larger sums of profit could be extracted. This happened for real. When the capital left the city, many urban communities deteriorated. As the cities collapse, their value of properties decline. The capital needed to maintain them yielded fewer and fewer return. The urban infrastructure was left for dead. Decades later, the suburbs grew. There was less room to invest small and gain big. Then, the capital returned to urban life. Poverty grew in urban communities and then the elites want to return to the urban communities to profit from it (not having some change of heart altruistic motive). Gentrification came into the picture as a means for the increasing rent costs (and dealing with the rent gap). It drives the poor out. It causes existing small business owners to be replaced with more businesses that cater to more wealthier residents. Many of the poor are bribed money to leave (as realty agencies MySpace NYC in Crown Heights have been accused of doing). If residents continue to resist, management companies have been known to withhold necessary maintenance in order to make conditions unlivable and drive out tenants. More police presence can harass and abuse people of color and the poor in gentrified areas as well in New York City. Public sector have been harmed too. Others want a demand for a minimum wage of $15 an hour.


We still have a war on freedom in America and throughout locations of the world. In our time, we never lived in an era such as this. There have been politicians who promised hope and change. The White House is wrong to execute policies that violate rule of law principles. Democratic values are being violated all of the time. Monied interests control both parties. We can't say Yes we can to the stuff that we see today. Imperialism respects no international, constitutional, and U.S. statue laws. There is a ruthless police state apparatus. Mass surveillance is part of U.S. official policy. Big Brother is still here after decades. The President wants new guidelines to deal with surveillance. He wants Congress to help. Yet, the establishment refusing to end the wicked war on terror, to halt mass surveillance completely, and to restore our freedoms. When Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, Center for Constitutional Rights senior litigation attorney Nancy Chang asked: “What’s so patriotic about trampling on the Bill of Rights?” In March of 2006, Congress renewed most Patriot Act powers. In May of 2011, Congress and Obama extended key ones for another four years. We still have mass surveillance, domestic spying etc. The state of the art technology permits the worst of what's ongoing. Spying then is crude compared to what is going on today. Modern capacity today is unprecedented since virtually everyone can be monitored at places under certain circumstances. NSA technology can monitor offline computers via radio waves. The NSA can penetrate computers covertly. Still, Guantanamo Bay is not closed. The war in Afghanistan is still going on and the Geneva Conventions has been violated very ruthlessly. The Patriot Act has allowed the FBI to monitor whatever personal information that they want. Our civil liberties are violated during this era as during the era of Bush Jr. Draconian cybersecurity legislation can harm regular Americans. Even the EFF or the Electronic Frontier Foundation talked about many actions to address civil liberty issues. They want to stop the mass surveillance of digital communications and communication records. They want to end the gag order authority. They oppose FISA. We see that many whistle blowers are targeted by the state during this era as well. So, we are in a fight for our human liberties.

Malcolm X did a great job in this speech. He outlined that neo-colonial imperialist Western forces have fought African self determination efforts in the world. He exposed the hypocrisy found in American society claiming to adhere to democratic principles, but deprived black Americans of basic human rights. He focused on the right to human beings to use any means necessary to establish authentic justice in the world where there is no justice. His speech crystallized his views for the world to see. He created the OOAU as a means to not only help black Americans, but to establish cultural including political ties with Africans (as a means to develop true pan-Africanist infrastructure in the globe). He changed a lot in 1964 onward. LIES AND MORE LIES COME FROM THE MEDIA. They or those in the mainstream media even admitted that they showed deception about the Iraq War. They lied about our leaders for years. They even refuse to talk about the BIS, the Federal Reserve in a massively critical way, and our real history in public view. The mainstream media is ruled by an oligarchy of a few corporations (based in the West). That is why the alternative media is superior to the mainstream media. Some in the media want to target BLACK PEOPLE because of our unique history and our unique essence of our cultural being. We have great STRENGTH, GIFTED MELANIN, AND A STRONG NATURAL FLAVOR that can never be duplicated totally by anyone at all. Patrice Lumumba was a hero. He is one of my inspirations in my life. He stood up for black liberation against the oppressor. He was a strong BLACK MAN and he will forever have my respect. He loved his wife and his family. He sacrificed his life, so Africa can witness a better future excluding colonialism and white imperialist domination. I knew about Patrice Lumumba for years. Malcolm X supported Lumumba's goals too. Many Brothers and Sisters greatly appreciate the efforts, the actions, and the sacrifice made by Brother Lumumba. We are still fighting against imperialism today. Yet, the greatness of Patrice Lumumba still lives on in us as a people.
  

There have been great words from the posters on this issue (of the Oscars and black actors including black actresses). Great article once again from Kirsten West Savali. The words from the Brother on Facebook were not offensive at all. The words dealt with an important issue of how we are not truly represented and respected by the mainstream entertainment world. The white power structure has underrepresented tons of great black actors and black actresses on their award shows for years. The Brother documented this reality for the world to see. White privilege and the system of white supremacy are realities documented by tons of experts (from black human beings and even non-black people too). Before any liberation can come from us, we have to love our BEING AND LOVE OUR BLACKNESS. There is no liberation without us knowing ourselves as human beings. We recognizing ourselves and our value are superior to token appreciation by those who could care less about our interests. We should form our own independent production companies and our infrastructure to detail our true IMAGE to the world. Also, other posters are right that many in our community should UNITE more and reject egoism and distractions that prevent such PROGRESS from taking place. Greed, envy, and materialism are social evils that we should oppose with all of our strength. This fight for our self-determination is not easy one. Yet, we have to fight. We fight because life is hard, not easy. Celebrating black culture is great. Debating issues and learning from the past is a must. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we can agree on common goals for the liberation of all black people. The majority of the black community respect strong black men and strong black women. Other folks want to demonize black people as a means to try to demoralize black people into following the status quo. Yet, the black community for ages have been strong and we will be stronger with strong efforts in improving our families (our communities and our infrastructure). I believe that any child and any family should have strong male and strong female role models in their lives. In that sense, the children can respect and appreciate the value of black males and black females. Everyone here wants the best for children. There is nothing wrong with a black person appreciating his or her own identity either. We should be color respectful. We can respect real people and not allow anyone to degrade us because we are black. Being black is a blessing from the CREATOR and we have the right to never bow before non-blacks at all. We have the right to treat our neighbors as ourselves and love the skin that we are in literally for BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL.


By Timothy