Savant's Words

Yes, this is from (if I recall correctly) King's last presidential address at SCLC. Before those comments he said that we had to begin more and more to call into the question the ENTIRE social order, and that meant calling CAPITALISM into question. But he was also saying that he was going there by his own route, not by the path of Marxism-Leninism.

-Savant

_______________________



If you are philosophically inclined, you might check out Rufus Burrow's GOD AND HUMAN DIGNITY: THE PERSONALISM, THEOLOGY AND ETHICS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. There's also a thesis accessible on line written by a brother from the School of Religion at Vanderbilt University (where I studied philosophy). A number of my brother and sister philosophers were talking about it during a professional meeting here in Bmore last December. I read it myself and found it very insightuf (despite some points of disagreement). I think his last name was Seay. I wil look it up and share the info.

 -Savant
_________________________

 Speaking of his experience in Scandinavia at the time of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, King writes: This was, for most of us, our first trip to Scandinavia...We felt we had much to learn from Scandinavia's DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST tradition and from the manner in which they had overcome many of social and economic problems that still plagued for more powerful and affluent nations. In both Norway and Sweden, whose economies are literally dwarfed by the size of our affluence and the extent of our technology, they have no unemployment and no slums. Their men, women and children have long enjoyed FREE MEDICAL CARE and QUALITY EDUCATION. This contrast to the limited, halting steps taken by our rich nation deeply troubled me." (See THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR, p. 259).


-Savant

___________________________


Sounds like you--in contrast to Zaius--has actually done some HOMEWORK. Yes, Dr. King DENOUNCED the human rights violations in the Stalinist eastern block and China. But he also denounced the rapaciiousness and exploitation of capitalism, especially unregulated capitalism. His admiration for democratic socialism is unmistably clear. Most scholars don't even seem to debate that fact any more--especially since the publication of previously private papers and letters. King was cautious, however, in expressing his sympathies for democratic socialism. He knew he and the Movement would be redbaited as Communist in this paranoid and politically immature society which can't tell Sweden from the Soviet Union, or Erich Fromm from Joseph Stalin. KIng didn't want to jeopardize the Movement, but he was clearly in favor of social democracy. On quite a few occasions he simply SAID SO.

-Savant

_________________________




And actually, Sina's not exactly correct that the white community is in AS bad a shape as the Black. But the white standard of living is certainly declining, Their umemployment level is not as bad as ours. Even their middle class has greater resources than ours. They certainly don't suffer anything like the abuse of police and judicial system as we do. But their living conditions are WORSENING, so much so that they're getting to be more receptive to talk about CLASS inequality than they've been up till now. Someone on MSNBC reported some polls that show that 75% of African-Americans and 85% of white American feel that there is too much class inequality, too much wealth concentrated in too few hands, and that there's a need for greater incoe equality. What's interesting is that the report said that this attitude among Blacks has existed for a LONG TIME, whereas among whites THIS MUCH dispproval of he economic order of things is a much more recent development. I wish I knew or could remember the source. An elder who was a university student in the late 1960s told me that while In Baltimore in 1967, Dr. King said to a group of Black folk something to the effect that: "The difference between us and our bemused white brethren is not what some of you think. It's not that they're free and we're not. It's that we KNOW we're not free, while they think they are." Perhaps, capitalism is now giving our "bemused white brethren" a WAKE UP CALL!!!

 -Savant
 __________


In short, Lupito is GORGEOUS.

-Savant

_______________

In light of this, i sometimes wonder if Malcolm and Martin wouldn't have gotten together if both had lived at least another 3--5 years. I seem to recall that James Cone records that they were feeling out the possibility of working together on some level. Some communication was beginning. But then Malcolm was killed. There were differences between them that would not simply disappear. But they might have found some practical common grounds (at least involving mutual support) for working together. This would have made that fascist punk J. Edgar Hoover crap in his pants. And it might have advanced the movement much further. Yes, BOTH men were anti-capitalist, though not Marxist. And both were exploring social alternatives, and thinking about the interrelatedness of of racial oppression and economic exploitation. But Malcolm x moved further than did Dr. King on the issue of the liberation of women. I think King would have caught up, but had not done so at the time he was slain. if we could have kept both of them until at least 1970, and kept their movements alive, how different might history be?

-Savant

http://www.globalresearch.ca/creating-the-world-we-want-knowing-what-we-oppose/5370214


_______________



There are ;elements of Marx's ideas which King accepted, but his foundational philosophical position was PERSONALISM. Personalism is a kind of philosophical idealism, while marxism is a kind of materialism. Those opposed metaphysical perspectives would have made it just about impossible for King to be a Marxist if he wanted to. Of course, you can accept SOME ideas coming from a different perspective as Seneca, a Stoic, could accept SOME Epicurean ideas. But those are the ideas that are compatible with your own philosophical framework. In particualr, Marx helped King be aware (as many middle class civil rights leaders were not) of the economic or class oppression, and the interconnectedness of racial oppression and economic exploitation--which is more blatant in the South than anywhere else in America 

-Savant
___________

 Dr. King & Global Justice: Univ of Oslo Lecture While in Scandinavia to receive the Nobel Prize, Dr. King made the following remarks about the fight against poverty as a global fight: "The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vsst resources of wealth to develop the undeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these." Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinte metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, too see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between teh RICH MINORITY and the POOR MAJORITY." (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., P.261; speech given on December 11, 1964) Same struggle, both domestically & globally.

 -Savant
 _______________

Remembering Malcolm X 49 Years On (A Must Read)

http://blackagendareport.com/content/remembering-malcolm-x-49-years

Just Jewels of Truth

On foreign policy, the White House has executed very reactionary policies. That is just accurate and the evidence is too overwhelming. It is a shame that Western entities have used policies to destabilize or destroying sovereign states (in causing puppet regimes to be in replacement of these states). The full spectrum war against nations globally, which is total imperialism, is wicked. The imperialist agenda is justified under the rubric of “humanitarian interventionism.” The cloak of humanitarianism is being utilized as a means for drone strikes, and other forms of warfare against sovereign peoples. The Western empire has been damaging socially, economically, and morally in the American consciousness. Haiti has been harmed. Libya’s government has been overthrown by brutish terrorists with NATO support. The Syrian state has been attacked by thousands of foreign financed killers who murdered Muslims, Christians, and others. The U.S. backed a coup against a lawfully elected government of Ukraine (and many of the coup supporters are direct descendants of the Nazi fascist movement). Ukraine could be further placed in the U.S./NATO orbit. The White House is still threatening the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Currently, the White House does not respect national or international law. Humanitarianism has nothing to do with funding cut throat terrorists. Humanitarianism has nothing to do with capitalism. Humanitarianism deals with fighting for social and economic justice (and realizes that we must end this wicked system of white supremacy completely). Humanitarianism deals with peace not war. War is the antithesis of humane treatment. For establishment Democrats even to support this imperialist agenda is typical of the nefarious nature of the corporate two party system. On some issues, even the Bush/Cheney regime could only dream of this situation. I disagree with President Obama using kill lists and so forth. Domestically, we have the Grand Bargain agenda being promoted by members of both parties. Social Security not being cut is part of the budget agenda. So, we have the right to discuss about these issues. Now, we should realize the big picture. The big picture is that even the President is not to be blamed for all of these issues. We have long decades of corrupt neoliberal policies that have harmed society. We must place the President Barack Obama into account for his actions, evaluate black bourgeois politicians fairly, and fight racial plus class oppression in the world. Revolutionary, democratic institutions must be advanced. So, grassroots political activism and self-empowerment are legitimate ways to fight the good fight. Many Presidents were at first were reluctant to pass PROGRESSIVE legislation. They were forced by mass movements (who advanced legitimate grievances) to create policies that were in favor of the interests of oppressed people. The abolitionist movement (headed by people like Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglas, etc.) inspired America to abolish overt chattel slavery legally in America. It was certainly grassroots black movements not establishment white liberals who created the foundation of the black liberation struggle. The mass protests and movements among Brothers and Sisters ended American apartheid, but we are not totally free now. We are not free from oppression and discrimination. We are not free from economic exploitation and imperialism. So, we must continue to fight for the same goal of human liberation that past heroes have fought for. The transactional agenda of the current President has been disappointing. Yet, I am still inspired to fight. We all have the right to fight for the truth to end imperialism and to end any injustice in the world.

Spike Lee told the truth. The enemy planned gentrification for a long time. Gentrification displaces strong black power bases and creates more corporate power to exploit economically human beings all of the time. Black urban populations have declined in many locations as a product of gentrification and black political power will decline if gentrification increases. Not only are the poor are pushed out, but many middle class families are pushed out as a means for select financial interests to promote the interests of the rich. Folks who rent can't afford to live in places when housing prices have massively increased as a product of gentrification. You will notice that gentrification never fully addresses poverty, the prison industrial complex, education, or other real, relevant issues in our communities. Gentrification is a sign that pure black self-determination is more than a goal that we should institute. It is a true necessity in our world today as black people. Also, I find that gentrification regularly eliminates the cultural uniqueness of locations. It just makes many cities blander culturally (with the elimination possibly of historical landmarks and fundamental places that have a long cultural significance) and many folks are harmed in the process that the numerous human beings don't know about. Sometimes change a'int good. At the final analysis, we are fighting white supremacy. We want black people to have economic power. White privilege has harmed black progress. Gentrification is a reminder that we should advocate for renters’ rights. Harlem, New York is overwhelmingly renter occupied as many black communities in America are. Black communities nationwide experience gentrifying pressures or soon will be all of the time. We are fighting for our lives literally as a people. African American communities have every right to be viable, permanent, and self-determining. The rule of money and the capitalist system profits under the backs of hard working black people. Also, capitalism is obviously a nefarious system that must be replaced with an egalitarian system that benefits the people in a comprehensive fashion. Both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before they died woke up a great deal. Their views converged. They realized that the token gains of the civil rights movement are not true liberation. True liberation is when the economic ad racial inequality built into American society are abolished. Dr. King told the journalist David Halberstam that: “…For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of the society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.” He also told Hablerstam that: “…most Americans are unconscious racists.” Dr. King wanted the whole current system to be gone to be replaced with a real system that benefits black people and humanity too.

It is obvious that the mainstream media outlines massive negative imagery about black people. Black people portrayed on many television shows, movies, etc. in negative ways all of the time (from being lazy, weak, overly irrational, etc.). The truth is that REAL BLACK PEOPLE are STRONG, RESILIENT, INTELLIGENT, FOCUSED, AND FILLED WITH REAL SOUL. That is why even foreign human beings ask many black American tourists if they are thugs or rap stars based on the media images that they receive from Western society. African culture deals with balance. Black people have every right to fight for a fair representation of their lives. All of us aren't Phds, but most of us are not crazed thugs either. The diversity of our image and the uniqueness of our stories have the right to be displayed succinctly in the world. Our great, beautiful black image ought to be respected. I think that they haven't revealed his cause of death yet. In many instances, plastic strategy does denote self-hatred. That is a given. These are grown adults (so, we can't force them to not get such surgeries), but many of these grown adults hate the image that God gave them, so they use surgeries to cover up their own insecurities. There is nothing superior to NATURAL BEAUTY. When we cherish our beauty as black human beings, then that is a great blessing from the CREATOR. The wickedness of Western society glamorizes a hatred of our black image. As Malcolm X said, Western racists have taught many blacks to hate their image and hate their blood, so many black people act nihilistic. The good news is we can educate our people more to love their BLACKNESS and appreciate their image that God gave them. In the final analysis, we should never be ashamed of our skin, of our nose, of our lips, of our voices, and of our diverse images. We are unified in this struggle for liberation despite our diversities. BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL. I love my image. We have great similarities too. Me personally, we should have universal health care that is fair, strong, and real. Also, just because we should reject extremism doesn't mean that we should not care about Nature. See, we have pollution, animals being harmed, and real environmental issues that we must address. We have every right to fight for clean air, for clean water, for the protection of animals, and for a greener future. That has nothing to do with setting up some UN styled Utopian system. That is about helping our fellow people and helping Nature. We ought to reject environmental racism as well. There is no sin in improving the environment in a real way. I am for helping Nature and it was the white supremacists that harmed the animals and Nature for a long time. It is in our African culture to protect Nature honorably.

RIP Chokwe Lumumba. He was a true populist leader. I did not know that he had ties to the late Tupac Shakur and Sister Assata either. Real recognize real as the old saying goes. I greatly respect the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement too in their fight for the justice of black people. Ironically enough, I only heard of him recently before he passed. Chokwe wanted a cooperative economy to handle issues in Jackson, Mississippi. I am researching more about cooperatives too and alternative solutions to our issues. Black people should not follow the GOP unconditionally at all. Black people have every right to follow what political party that they want without faux intimidation from reactionaries. Also, tons of black people have great intelligence and great sense to reject imperialism, to reject economic exploitation, and to reject color blind post racial fantasies. The truth is that black people have every right to advocate solidarity within their community. Black people have every right to come out to endorse civil liberties and reject threats to our voting rights coming from the enemies of progress. The truth is that black people have every right to speak truth to power. Overall black crime rates have gone down over the past 3 decades. Teen black pregnancy rates have gone down since 1992. Therefore, Chokwe Lumumba was a heroic Brother whose Malcolm X Grassroots Movement organization has ideologies that I agree with strongly and with vigor. Economists from across the political spectrum have said the same thing as this study. The reality is that growing income inequality will have a huge detrimental effect on the economy unless something is done. The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right to say the following words: "...For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values." The handwriting is on the wall. I have a great deal of abhorrence of the reactionary agenda as you do. If an independent liberal person or an independent person in general want to fight for justice, revolutionary change, and is sincere, that is fine. There can be legitimate critiques of the establishment Democratic forces, but the reactionaries are far more vicious in their agendas and outlook. If the reactionaries had their way, military strikes possibly could be in Iran and austerity will be much more brutal in American society. Certainly, mainstream capitalism has been an archaic, exploitative system that harmed our black communities (from the growth of the prison industrial complex to the high unemployment rate among our people nationwide. The vicious white establishment capitalist system has been very detrimental to the progress of our people). We do need a radical redistribution of economic and political power as the late democratic socialist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had outlined. Fundamentally, revolutionary solutions deal with radical change in the larger society too.

I heard of Kesha Rogers many years ago. She is a LaRouchite type of person. Kesha Rogers feels that the President is akin to Hitler. The LaRouchites are something else. Smh. They love nuclear power and they always send out papers on their positions in universities nationwide. Kesha Rogers is right on some issues. I saw her on Youtube for years. She is right that we should not have all of these unjust wars (that harm our economy and prevent us from building our domestic infrastructure). She is right that we should not have a Simpson Bowles austerity agenda in the world. I don't agree with her with comparing the President with Adolf Hitler though. Hitler was a tyrant who utilized genocide against millions of human beings along with using imperialism in many continents. Hitler was a brutal racist white supremacist (an enemy) who wanted the extermination of humans as a policy. Hitler was one key figure who started WWII. I think it is disrespectful to the victims of WWII to compare President Barack Obama to Hitler. I think Kesha is a product of many people yearning for answers. Folks want answers and more radical voices have popularity. Like always, we should have politically independent thinking. On the other hand, we should not ally with reactionaries who want to call the President & his family every name under the sun either. I love how the President and First Lady Michelle Obama love each other and their children. We have to fight for legitimate human rights and legitimate social change (without embracing extremist rhetoric). Also, the Nazis did kill black people in concentration camps too. The Larouchite ilk compared Obama to Hitler beyond just critiques of the Affordable Care Act. Her characterization of the President as akin to Hitler was false, ignorant, and disrespectful to the victims of World War II. Also, black people know full well about eugenics, its definition, and its application in the lives of people of color worldwide. We know about the Tuskegee Experiment and forced sterilization laws in America that harmed our Brothers and our Sisters spanning decades. I know all of her arguments. I studied her views and her arguments on issues for years. So, others can't convince me otherwise. Also, tons of black Americans know the total picture. The system of white supremacy has done more evil for centuries than the President has ever done. That is a fact. It is one thing to outline cogent dissent about the ACA (which individuals have every right to do), but to try to make Obama similar to Hitler is crossing a line. Folks surely realize the imperfections found in the ACA, which is why I call for universal health care. I know about the definition of eugenics. I wrote about eugenics and I studied it for years. The Nazis executed a mass scale of eugenics with support from Western bankers (and eugenics was about authoritarian laws, forced sterilizations, and other heinous actions that were much worse than the ACA. The ACA never institutes genocide, forced sterilizations, and massive killings of humans as the Nazis have done). So, Kesha has a lot to learn and she has to realize that the system of white supremacy is the enemy that we must confront in order to see justice for humanity. We should pray for the Sister Kesha Rogers to open her eyes and see the total picture. See, black people should not take their inspiration from LaRouche. I don't take my inspiration from LaRouche, Lenin, Marx, Engles, or Milton Freidman. I take my inspiration from the Brothers and the Sisters in our history that struggled for freedom and valiantly fought for true liberation in the world from Malcolm X to Sojourner Truth. Now, the Sister Kesha Rogers should not be scapegoated for our issues. She is a Sister who sincerely wants to fight for truth, but we have the right to peacefully disagree with her on some issues. I take my inspiration from the ancestors and from the Creator too.

By Timothy

The Radical Dr. King

http://socialchangenyu.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/radical-king.pdf

http://www.onbeing.org/sites/default/files/Gwendolyn%20Zoharah%20Simmons%20Revisiting%20Dr.%20King.pdf

This is the link.


http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/ConvMartyrdom.html

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.pdf

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21980-hidden-history-the-war-on-poverty-at-50

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/opinion/krugman-a-war-on-the-poor.html?_r=0

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1571&C=1495

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf

http://dandurand.uqam.ca/uploads/files/publications/rflexions/Parisella_Policy_Options_oct2010.pdf

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/015/3/0/stop_the_war_feed_the_poor_by_brainhiccup-d4mi4sr.png

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11301

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/report/2014/01/07/81702/50-years-after-lbjs-war-on-poverty/

https://law.wustl.edu/journal/19/p39Jones.pdf

http://www.msnbc.com/all/mlks-fight-against-economic-inequality

http://multiplepathways.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/mlk-poverty-schools-and-the-war-against-the-poor/

Winter 2014 Part 4

Conclusion

There are domestic drones being proposed to patrol the skies of America. Drone aircraft has been popularized as weapons of war. It has been used by the United States in foreign lands. Now, they are poised for a full scale invasion of the skies above the U.S. itself. On December 30, 2013, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced its choices for drone testing in six states in America. These states are Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia. These six states may turn their testing in more than one location. One example of this is information from the Anchorage Daily News. It has done drone testing in Alaska at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It will be called the "Pan-Pacific Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Range Complex." It includes six flight ranges in Alaska, four in Hawaii, and three in Oregon. According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser “the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island, the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai and even the island of Niihau have been included in discussions of places where the testing could occur.” According to the East Oregonian, the drone testing will likely to invoke a former military base in Pendleton, Port of Tillamook, and Warm Springs. Likewise, the New York operation will be run from the former Griffiss Air Force base in Rome, NY. According to the Cape Code Times, it will include the former Otis Air Base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Times reported that, “the Cape site had the support of the state’s congressional delegation, a statewide military asset commission and business leaders” and that “among the institutions involved in the bid are Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rochester Institute of Technology.” So, many sources show the creation of a huge web of DoD connected Universities, businesses, corporations, defense contractors, and former and current Pentagon facilities spread all over the country. There are many chambers of commerce, their boosters in the press, and numerous comprador "officials" anxious to bring federal money into their districts at the expense of all of the people who live in them. There has been no news coverage has appeared that would imply that the FAA decision was anything but a boon for the economy (and the advent of a interesting and inevitable new technology). There are many down sides to hosting drones in the States. There is a populace that hasn’t been consulted on these issues. Drones have grown since 2001. The war on terror used such drone in a highly illegal, cowardly, and indiscriminate fashion via targeted killings in foreign lands.  These weapons have killed countless innocent people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. There are real kill lists drawn up every week by the CIA and the Pentagon (which is approved by the White House). Many of these weapons allow folks to be judge, jury, and executioner. Many folks are killed from people in offices like someone playing a video game consoles in a perverse way. Drones being used domestically raise privacy concerns and human rights concern. Surveillance is real. Domestic law enforcement agencies are just as anxious to spy on the US population and target people they call criminals as the Pentagon and CIA have been to spy on the rest of the world and kill people they call terrorists. It isn’t enough that our phones and computers have been turned by the NSA into astounding instruments of surveillance, that everything we say and do on these instruments is being harvested and stored, and that surveillance cameras are mounted at almost every business and public space. These drones could store information on us electronically. too This domestic military bases have this brave new technology. The global elite want profit and control. They are using the same actions of drone spying and drone warfare overseas and bringing these tactics domestically in the States.


Many in the Tea Party love Thomas Jefferson. The more research I found about Thomas Jefferson, the more I realize how evil he was. His hypocrisies gave us the Civil War and the Tea Party. He was the lead author of the Declaration of Independence. For some of the Tea Party crowd, Thomas Jefferson redefined the U.S. Constitution as a means to incorporate the Southern slaveholders' hostility to a strong federal government. Jefferson was unique for his time in that he was skeptical of organized religion, believed in how art can enhance public places, was interested in the scientific fashion. Thomas Jefferson defended the South's barbaric slave system. At Monticello, he carefully calculated the monetary value of his scores of slaves, had the lash applied to boy slaves as young as 10, and apparently sexually exploited at least one and possibly other slave girls. His invention of states' rights was used by the racist to persecute African Americans via slavery, Jim Crow, the prison industrial complex, etc. Today, reactionaries uses states' rights as a means to try to curtail voting rights and pass other laws the disproportionately target blacks. Jefferson agreed to nullification. He established policies toward the Native Americans that led to their expulsion to the west of the Mississippi. The Trial of Tears talked about genocide. Yet, Jefferson is best known for writing in the early days of America’s War for Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson was a big slaveholder in Virginia. He viewed blacks as inferior to whites, which makes him a hypocrite. Jefferson also slandered black people in his racist literature like the Notes on the State of Virginia. Sally Hemmings was totally exploited by Thomas Jefferson. He exploited human slaves for his own financial benefit, which is very satanic and evil to say the least. We know that many Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason accepted slavery and wanted to maintain it. Many leading Federalists were abolitionists. Even Alexander Hamilton was much more progressive than Thomas Jefferson on many issues including slavery. Thomas Jefferson refused to join the abolitionist Amis des Noirs in Paris, France. Hamilton wanted the government to have the Constitution to have a strong central government. The Articles of Confederation were soon gone. Article I, Section 8 allows Congress to “provide for … the general Welfare of the United States” and grants Congress the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.” This was beyond strict construction as Jefferson believed. And, despite the Constitution’s explicit reference to making federal law “the supreme law of the land,” Jefferson exploited the lingering resentments over ratification to reassert the states’ supremacy over the federal government. Often working behind the scenes – even while serving as Vice President under President John Adams – Jefferson promoted each state’s right to nullify federal law and even to secede from the Union. Jefferson opposed the Haitian rebellion in Haiti while Hamilton supported the Brother Toussaint L'Ouverture to free his people from French plantation owners. Jefferson, when he was President, used a blockade of Haiti that caused violence and poverty there. Jefferson tried to block the Northern efforts to block the spread of slavery into Missouri (under the guise of states' right), which refutes any notion that Thomas Jefferson was some strong liberal. The Tea Party's intense hatred of African American President Barack Obama is related to Thomas Jefferson's hatred of black people. The false victimhood of white Southerners back then continues to exist today among many white people. So, Thomas Jefferson is an intellectual father of the Tea Party movement and the antithesis of many of his words.

Our ancestors suffered unspeakable tragedies and built up heavily this nation from the ground up literally. So, our people have the right to advance our interests. It is not about hating them (which many falsely accuse us of. I don't hate any human being). It is about going out to believe in improvement and justice. Without black people, America can never reach its true potential and utmost creative essence. Black people have great value in the universe and our value ought to be appreciated. Our people fought greatly against Jim Crow, slavery, and other injustices. Their sacrifices and strong efforts should never be whitewashed or diminished at all. We have every right to condemn economic exploitation, imperialism, environmental harm, and debased genetic manipulation done by the powers that be. There is nothing wrong with harboring resentment against injustice, against racism, against poverty, against imperialism (including the war crimes that come with it), against police brutality and against any oppression. There can be no real solutions without understanding the problem, understanding who originated the problem, and understanding how to get the problem solved. There should be the love of the truth and the love of positive human endeavor as a means to make legitimate changes necessary to develop the lives of black human beings.

By Timothy

Winter 2014 Part 3

Neoliberalism Exposed

The Federal Reserve being exposed for its corruption and nefarious policies are a great thing to do. The Bank of Israel's Governor Stanley Fisher is nominated as the Federal Reserve Vice Chairman. It is obvious when you have select central banks controlling an inordinate influence in the world, then that is wrong and problems will occur. When the government is dependent for money on the bankers, then the government leaders can never totally control the nations. Many financiers in real life have no loyalty to patriotism or decency. The Federal Reserve just commemorated 100 years of financial terrorism. In mid-December, President Barack Obama nominated Stanley Fischer as the Federal Reserve vice chairman. If she will be confirmed, he will replace Janet Yellen. Yellen will soon be the first woman to be the Chair of the Federal Board of Governors. She will replace Ben Bernanke. She will become the Fed Chairman in the end of January. From January 2005 through June 30, 2013, Fischer was Bank of Israel governor. He holds dual US/Israeli citizenship. He was involved earlier with the Bank of Israel. In 1980, he was a visiting scholar. In 1985, he was Reagan administration advisor to Israel’s economic stabilization program. During that time, neoliberalism just grew. Knesset members amended the Bank of Israel Law. It prohibited it form printing money for industrialization, full employment, and immigrant absorption. Israel embraced transformative change for the worst. Power began shifting from various government agencies to the Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel. It’s similar to how America was financially dealt with. In 1985, Israeli policy included budget deficits reduced to near balance. Inflation was dampened the wrong way. Wages, public pensions, and other social benefits were cut. The shekel was debased. Unions lost power and workers were exploited. The Arrangements Law established an emergency Economic Stabilization Plan. Doing so sidestepped normal legislative procedures. Knesset members were prevented from debating its socially destructive provisions. A race to the bottom followed. It continued throughout the 1990s. It did so under Fisher. It does so today. In Israel and America we have mass privatizations. We have welfare and social benefits cuts. There is wealth disproportionately shifted from ordinary Israelis to corporate interests and super rich elites as well as other so-called structural adjustments. Fischer studied in England and America. He was an University of Chicago associate professor. He became an U.S. citizen in 1976. He worked in the IMF before. He was in the Group of Thirty by late 2001. We see neoliberalism as part of much of U.S. economy policy. Israel today gets billions of dollars in annual aid, the latest weapons and technology, unrestricted US market access, benefits afforded no other nations, and much more. It does so in violation of the 1961 US Foreign Assistance Act. He supports regime change in Syria. He worked to arrange the 2008 bailout of Citigroup. QE reduced the money supply. It did so “by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit,” said Ellen Brown. It’s an “asset swap.” Assets for cash reserves “never leave bank balance sheets,” she said. Doing so is counterproductive. It’s self-defeating. It constrains economic growth. It doesn’t create jobs. It benefits Wall Street. It does it at the expense of Main Street. When you have money used wisely in the economy, then growth can come. The QE policy benefits the banks not the workers or most Americans struggling at all. We need true economic populism without neoliberalism. 

Economic Inequality

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.

Important History


The Mont Pelerin Society has been a strong reactionary entity in that it is under the control of the establishment. It was created in 1947 in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland by Friedrich von Hayek. Hayek was clear on his intensions. He wanted laissez faire capitalism and the free market to not be unencumbered by government regulation. Other founders of the Mont Pelerin were Otto von Hapsburg or the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and other oligarchs. So, the elitist aristocrats aided von Hayek not the masses of the common people. Von Hayek wrote, "The Road to Serfdom" was a defense of laissez fair free market capitalism as a reaction to the New Deal. He wanted laissez faire capitalism and the free market to rule in society. The Mont Pelerin Society included journalists, economists, Nobel Prize recipients, and others. Friedrich von Hayek heavily influenced the modern libertarian movement and the Austrian school. Ludwig worked in Count Coundenhove Kalegri's Pan Europe movement in 1943. This movement wanted an united Europe. University of Chicago Professor Milton Friedman was president of the Mont Pelerin Society from 1970 to 1972. Milton Friedman was a leader of the University of Chicago’s “Chicago School of  Economics” which overturned Keynesian economic theory with the Austrian School economic philosophy of laissez faire, free market capitalism. Even the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank not a government entity per se, which refutes the lie that the Federal Reserve is totally a public entity. The MPS worked with the Heritage Foundation, the CNP, and other reactionaries to advance their agenda. Many founders of the Mont Pelerin Society were prominent members of eugenics societies, etc. Sir Antony Fisher, a member of the Fabian Society, founded the Manhattan Institute in 1977 with Friedrich von Hayek. In 1994, Manhattan Institute scholar Charles Murray co-authored The Bell Curve, a landmark publication advancing the theory of intellectual inferiority of black human beings (which is a lie). Another founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society was “Ralph Harris, a leader of the British Eugenics Society which had earlier helped draft Hitler’s race laws.” The Austrian School of Economics was launched to preach and teach the doctrine of laissez faire, free market economics. Unfettered by government regulation, the market place would regulate itself, the new preachers exhorted their students, and the central banks would oversee the economic and financial reorganization of the world. Ludwig von Mises and and Count Coundenhove-Kalergi loved this free market doctrine. Pure unregulated, unbridled capitalism is wrong, because it can remove the safeguards necessary to prevent pollution, civil liberty abuses, and other human rights. There has to be a way to prevent the existence of monopolies polluting the environment, to prevent those from having unwarranted greed, to prevent some from robbing our nation of our resources, and to stop other evils in the name of creating "sound money." The wealthy taking away the public benefits from citizens is folly. Each human has the right to have an education, to have healthcare, to drink clean water, and to breathe clean air. To provide education to human beings, to protect our environment, to help those in need, and to promote our vital interests has nothing to do with violating personal freedom (if these actions are done correctly). It has to do with showing human compassion and human dignity. Wealth should never be totally privatized into select hands of a few central banks (in the headquarters of the BIS in Switzerland). Wealth has been increasingly centralized into a few financiers. Also, the IMF has been overseeing the U.S. economy in an unjust way. The IMF as we know has been involved in harming the political, economic, and human rights of many nations of the world (especially Third world nations and nation of color). The IMF has a wicked history then and now. We do not need anarchy to take over the nation or the world. We need righteousness to take over society. True liberty is about doing things to advance righteousness, morality, and truth not to advance materialism, greed, and selfishness. Real liberty is about restraining evil as a means to establish justice, tranquility, and providing the general welfare plus defense of humanity. That is why we should have a watchful eye and a real hand on the wealthy who covet money. When the schemes of the wealthy try to harm the poor, then we have the right to speak up for the poor. So, we should have justice for humanity including the poor.

The War on Poverty

The War on Poverty is now over 50 Years Old. We all want the same goal of fighting and ending poverty completely. Many of us disagree with some of the ways to get to that goal. President Lyndon Baines Johnson delivered his speech on wanting to end poverty, joblessness, and hunger in America during his first State of the Union Address on January 8, 1964. “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America,” Johnson said in the speech, delivered not quite seven weeks after the assassination of his predecessor, John Kennedy. Many of the programs that Congress and the President enacted in this period were part of the Great Society. These programs included: the Social Security Act of 1965 creating Medicare and Medicaid, which respectively provided health insurance to the elderly and introduced federal health care coverage for the disabled and poor; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the first significant legislation addressing institutional racism since the era of Reconstruction nearly a century earlier; and a number of job training, urban development, educational, and nutritional government agencies and initiatives, including the pre-kindergarten educational program Head Start and the Food Stamp program. The War on Poverty was a test of U.S. capitalism and economic policies. The verdict is in. The War on Poverty made some improvements in society, while there is a long way to go. Some of Johnson's programs included tax cuts for the which and the funding of the American war machine. The U.S. economy grew in the 1960's. Soon, came the decline of U.S. industry. Tax cuts came under Johnson. The United States Revenue Act of 1964 reduced the top marginal tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent, handing over 30 percent of the aggregate tax cut to the top 2 percent of tax filers. Corporate taxes were also reduced. The logic was that these tax cuts would inspire industries to grow jobs. This didn't work. Corporate profits grew by 65 percent over the decedes. Yes, the corporaitons and wealthy stockholders increasingly diverted resources overseas—industrial investment by US corporations abroad increased by 500 percent in the 1960s—and toward financial speculation, in what historian Alfred Chandler has called the mergers and acquisitions “binge” of 1965-1969. The tradition of long-term and stable ownership of stocks was steadily replaced by a purchase strategy that centered on short-term profits. High military spending harmed domestic services too. That is why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right to say that the US spent “$500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor.” By the end of the 1960s, one in every ten jobs in the US was tied to the Defense Department budget. We have the liberal reformism of the Great Society. There were wage strikes of the 1970's, and the decline of Western capitalism later on. Today, the ruling class views any government expenditure on social programs as intolerable. The War on Poverty was heavily impacted negativity by the Vietnam War and other issues. Even today, the poor is being regularly scapegoated, demonized, and disrespected by ignorant narrowminded human beings. Much of the poor are poor by no fault of their own. It has been a perverted pasttime for some of the Western elites to demonize the poor in an unfair fashion. It is a shame. The poverty rate was cut in half from 1960 to 1970, but we still have a long way to go in ending poverty (because of the recession and some human beings giving up finding jobs. Underemployment represents a serious problem). In the years between 1965 and 1973, poverty rates plummeted, and especially in urban areas, by about 38 percent. Many of the Great Society problems were cut or eliminated by the mid 1970's. We haven't won the war on poverty, because of unjust wars, economic regressive actions, massive austerity cuts, and massive giveaways to the super rich (and other reasons). Billions of dollars can be spent for imperialism and the military industrial complex, but now we see no serious effort to address poverty in the world. Our social safety net is ever threatened by reactionaries. The solution is not a one size fit all approach though. Every level of government and a wide spectrum of human beings should be part of the solution to assist the poor, to give human beings JOBS, to fight crime, to grow our education, and to see human beings to have a radical, revolutionary improvement of their standard of living (via INVESTMENTS, INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT, ETC.). WE HAVE TO TAKE A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH WHEN DEALING WITH FIGHTING POVERTY. Classism, Racism and Sexism are inextricably linked to our issues as well. We have to address the structural problems involving poverty. We have to address economic inequality and vast wealth transferred to the top of society. To eradicate poverty, there should be radical policies.

Educational Justice 

The movement for educational justice is real and it continues. Studies have documented that smaller class sizes will develop into better education for children. Yet, the powers that be still want large class sizes. Now, in Portland, people are fighting for smaller class size. School officials want another agenda. Since 2007, Portland Public Schools (PPS) has spent over $2.5 million on this employee training program, and the district has plans to spend another $1 million a year to fund its own equity office based largely around these ideas. About half of $2.5 million has gone directly to PEG--the rest was spent on travel and related costs for teachers and administrators to attend conferences in San Antonio, Texas, and San Francisco. The issue is that the PEG and the PPS must deal with institutional biases and class size more adequately. There should be alternative ways to address inequality in Portland schools. There is the battle between PPS and the Portland Association of Teachers or the PAT. There is the teachers strike looming on February 20 over the union's demands for a contract that addresses not only their working conditions, but the learning conditions for all of their students. MULTIPLE STUDIES (here and here, for example) have shown that while reducing class size has a positive effect on all students in every way that can be measured--including improved grades, improved attendance and higher test scores--it has a disproportionately positive effect on minority and low-income students. One Princeton University study concluded that class size reduction is "one of very few educational interventions that have been proven to narrow the achievement gap." For example, the Princeton researchers found that attending what they classified as small-sized classes, compared to regular-sized classes: "...raises the likelihood that Black students take the ACT or SAT college entrance exam from 31.8 to 41.3 percent, and raises the likelihood that white students take one of the exams from 44.7 to 46.4 percent. As a consequence, if all students were assigned to a small class, the Black-white gap in taking a college entrance exam would fall by an estimated 60 percent..." More students found that reduced class size for minority students extend beyond academic achievement like improved reading and math test scores. The studies prove that black teenage males who attended small-sized classes were 40 percent less likely to become fathers at a young age, compared to their peers in regular-sized classes. One issue is that more minorities should be in smaller class sizes. We should address the roots of racial disparity in student experience, etc. There are institutional biases in the system that must be eliminated as a means to handle resources. We know about the schools in the Jefferson cluster located in Portland's historically Black North Portland area. It has the only majority black high school in the school. 75 percent of the students are on free or reduced lunch, but it has been underfunded all of the time, closed down, or restructured via market based strategies based on the idea of "school choice." For the last 10 years, the Jefferson cluster has seen more schools closed than the rest of the PPS clusters combined. The cluster's students and families have disproportionately suffered disruptions to their educational experiences. Schools in the cluster are systematically underfunded. This leads to a downward cycle: Transfer policies allow families who can manage to do so to put their children in other schools, which leads the district to pull more money out of the "failing" schools as enrollment goes down. The students left behind often attend classes with over 40 students--or in other cases, can't get into the classes they need to graduate after teacher positions and entire programs are slashed. So, reasonable people want smaller class sizes, an end to stop and frisk, and an end to mass incarceration (which is related to the school to prison pipeline). So, the PPS including Carole Smith should spend money on resources and programs that deal with minorities and low income students in the classroom. The PPS can fund programs in the arts, music, theater, and P.E. including advanced courses. That can cause students to grow and be challenged in the world. Health programs food programs, qualified counselors, and Head Start is key solutions too. True educational justice when that we fight corporate interests that wants public education to benefit them (that deals with consulting firms, money sent to private charter schools, etc.). Communities in Portland, Medford, and other cities in America are standing behind real teachers, and real students who want better conditions in the educational field. It is all about the people at the end of the day.

The 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos 

Many corporate criminals and billionaires are starting their World Economic Forum in Davos. This is the 44th annual World Economic Forum (WEF). There are over 2,000 corporate executives, major investors, government leaders, central bankers, and celebrities there. Davos is where it has a Swiss Alpine resort. The whole deal is the annual celebration of wealth and avarice. This comes when the world's super rich have record profits in 2013. There are stock prices and corporate profits surged to new record highs. There has the swelling of the bank accounts and portfolios of the financial elite, even as austerity measures, wage cutting, and layoffs slashed living standards and threw tens of millions more people into poverty. On the eve of the forum, the British charity Oxfam released a study. It documented the staggering growth of social inequality. Oxfam reported that the richest 85 individuals possess more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the world population or 3.5 billion people. The Davos Conference embodies the emergence of a new global financial aristocracy. The meeting has 80 billionaires and hundreds of millionaires. The general tone of the opening day deals with "fragile optimism" according to a survey of attendees. There is the expectation of more discussions about the recession now. There have been festivities there. The plundering of society still existed by the elites represented in Davos. The conference goes from January 22 to the 25th. It officially adopted the title "The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.” It will draw 1,500 business executives, 48 prime ministers and presidents, and the heads of twenty central banks. US attendees include Secretary of State John Kerry, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy. Panel discussions on topics such as “Regulating Innovation,” “Closing Europe’s Competitiveness Gap,” “Higher Education—Investment or Waste?” and “Immigration—Welcome or Not?” are sandwiched between galas and parties for the rich and powerful. As the Washington Post quipped, “After absorbing so much info during the day, evenings are your usual party scene, devoted to celebrity-spotting, night skiing and such, and apparently a fair amount of alcohol consumption.” The Davos' prestigious Belvedere Hotel alone has ordered 1,594 bottles of champagne and Prosecco, as well as 3,088 bottles of red and white wine according to the BBC. This is done to facilitate the “320 parties in five days, its 126 rooms crammed with chief executives, prime ministers and presidents.” 

The attendees are celebrating for many reasons. The wealthiest 300 people in the world saw their net worth grow by $524 billion over the last year according to the Bloomberg News. The Bloomberg article, entitled “Davos Billionaires See Wealth Gains on 2014 Stocks Rally,” noted that Bill Gates was last year’s biggest gainer, having increased his fortune by $15.8 billion to $78.5 billion, recapturing the position of world’s richest person. The conference was created in 1971. It was created by the German business professor Klaus Schwab, who invited hundreds of corporate executives all over the Europe. He called the group "European Management Forum." The event changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987. Under Reagan and under Thatcher, the era of political reaction caused the WEF to grow. There has been the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top. Many hundreds of executives are at Davos. Many of them are from banks whose speculative and fraudulent actions triggered the 2008 financial crisis. Goldman Sachs sent eight delegates (including CEO Lloyd Blankfein), Citigroup and HSBC sent seven apiece, and JPMorgan Chase sent six, including CEO Jamie Dimon. Panelists at a Wednesday forum entitled “Is the International Financial System Safer Now than it was Five Years Ago?” included HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint and Barclays CEO Anthony Jenkins. Barclays paid regulators $450 million in 2012 to settle charges that it illegally manipulated the world’s main interest rate, the London Interbank Lending Rate, or Libor. HSBC paid $500 million to regulators to settle similar allegations and hundreds of millions more to settle charges of drug money laundering. They are trying to talk about income inequality. We all know that income inequality threatens the poor and the rest of humanity. It is a serious threat that must be fought against. They are not proposing radical social solutions to stop the plight of the working class or redistribute wealth downwards from the top. Workers should have their protections. The environment must be addressed and human life is superior to corporate profit. We have record taxation in the States in some cases and massive austerity globally. So, some want to continue in cutting regulations and cutting taxes alone and these actions will never grow the economy totally at all.




By Timothy 

Winter 2014 Part 2

Ariel Sharon


Ariel Sharon has passed away on January 11, 2014. His life was controversial. His death was a long process. He was a reactionary. I don't gloat over his death, but neither will I omit his errors. His family and friends should receive comfort and compassion in their lives. Yet, Ariel Sharon's errors ought not to be omitted either. He was the 11th Prime Minister of Israel. He suffered a stroke and became incapacitated by it. He was in a coma until his body started to serious fail and then he died. He was a commander in the Israeli Army way back in 1948 when it was first established. For long decades, many of his supporters were vicious racists who harbor bigotry against those who are of Arabic descent. Ariel Sharon was known in Israel before his election for the advice he gave to the occupying forces for dealing with Palestinian demonstrators, "Cut off their testicles!" (Yediot Ahronot, 29/12/82) He also said that "the only good Arab is a dead Arab." (Maariv, 18/02/83). So, we know about his extremism and bigotry. He was a reactionary through and through. Many of his actions violated the precepts of the Geneva Convention and other international laws. In 1953, he led Unit 101 that murdered 69 civilians in their houses (in the Palestinian homes in Gaza under the flimsiest pretext of security). He led the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This caused the killing of more than 15,000 Lebanese civilians. In 1982: he provided the floodlights and military protection for his Phalange militia allies to massacre up to 3 000 unarmed refugees in Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps after the Americans had negotiated the departure of the Palestinian fighters and a 'truce'. An Israeli Commission of Enquiry found him "personally responsible" and ruled that he was too dirty even for the politics of the state. Sharon has always organized extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders, the bombings of Palestinian residential areas, and a host of other activities illegal under international law. He has always refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency any access to Israel’s nuclear facilities, revealed to the world by the heroic Rector of Glasgow University, Mordechai Vanunu. By 2005, he resigned as head of the Likud party. He formed the new party called Kadima in November 21, 2005. He was loved by ex-President George W. Bush. Birds of a feather flock together. George W. Bush advanced imperialism globally and other reactionary policies domestically too. Bush loved Ariel Sharon's agenda and the establishment's way of life. Ironically, anti-civil liberty laws exist in America and Israel. There were Israel attacks on Lebanon and later Hezbollah was ironically strengthened. Many reactionaries in Israel want to restrict the housing and other human rights of Israel's Arabic citizens. Ariel Sharon's life was complicated and controversial all in the same time. The lesson is that Jewish and Arabic human beings deserve peace. It is as simple as that.

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.

Fukushima


There is the evil of the Fukushima radiation disaster. Some believe that the radiation from the Fukushima a power plant is decimating wildlife in the Western portion of North America. We now have seals, seal lions, polar bears, bald eagles, sea stars, turtles, king and sockeye salmon, herring, anchovies, and sardines all suffering from mysterious diseases. These animals are suffering mysterious diseases and killing many in the West Coast of North Carolina. There are bald eagles dying in Utah. 20 have died in a few weeks alone. There is no conclusive evidence on why these things are transpiring. Officials at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center have their own theories. Some point to radiation from Japan after the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Buz Marthaler, Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah co-founder: “It’s just hard to have your national bird in your arms, going through seizures in a way it can’t control — when you can see it’s pain but don’t know what’s happening to it. As a human being, you just have problems with that. And when you lose one, it just grabs your heart. [...] In an average year, we might get one or two, but we’ve received nine so far, and five of those have died. The other four are still in our care. [...] We aren’t ruling out anything.” We know that the American and the Japanese governments are doing everything that they can to cover up the severity of the Fukushima disaster. We know that anytime the government or big corporations mess things up, the government works to cover it up instead of actually trying to fix the problem.  We have issues in Detroit too. There is the battle of the people against the tyranny of corporate rule in Detroit. Detroit should not experience some free market utopia that is corporate ruled totally. Detroit has been heavily privatized and gentrification is going on in the city as well. Detroit entered bankruptcy and their resources are being stripped. Detroit has slightly less crime than 1987, but Detroit is having huge economic problems. Governor Rick Snyder the emergency bankruptcy Kevyn Orr handles much of the power of controlling Detroit's finances. For years, the right-wing Mackinac Policy Center has advanced the idea of privatizing government services in Detroit and across Michigan. They have called for the sale of assets – like electrical utilities, water/sewer, and public electricity. Now the city's electrical grid is on its way to being sold to DTE Energy. The emergency manager will also put up Detroit's trash collection for private bidding. So, Detroit's mostly African American population is being exploited for the sake of corporate exploiters that want sports facilities, outdoor markets, and restaurants. So, the struggle continues.

The TPP and TAFTA

The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids. TPP stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to researcher Kevin Zeese, the TPP has been drafted in an unprecedented degree of secrecy. The supporters of the TPP believe that is will expand trade between North American and the rest of the world. The claim of increased trade and investment has been used as smokescreen that conceals the TPP's corporate assalult on food safety, the environment, worker rights, access to health care, and basically every facet of our lives as free citizens. There has been a recent release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter from Wikileaks that confirmed the fears of trade liberalization critics that the reach of patents, copyrights, and trade secrets will be extended at the expense of consumer rights and safeguards. There have been those who accuse TPP IP regime of trying to trample individual rights and free expression. The TPP secured third place among Project Censored’s most censored stories of 2012-2013. The Sonoma State University media research program describes the TPP as “an enforceable transfer of sovereignty from nations and their people to foreign corporations.” FLUSHTHETPP.ORG is a real website that is famous to oppose the TPP. The TPP is a secret trade agreement that is being negotiated behind the scenes of the American people including Congress. There are at least 600 corporate advisers doing the negotiation. The TPP will strengthen corporate power in dealing with health care, the environment, worker rights, food safety, etc. Much of the secret negotiations have been done by Big Ag like Monsanto, Dupont, Cargill, and Syngenta. The TPP alows corporations to sue governments (including local and state government) who pass food and safety regulations or laws protecting family farmers (they claim that they are "barriers to trade" that hurt expected future profits). Therefore, the TPP places the profits of multinational corporations over the food security needs of individual nations. Fast track is wrong, because under Fast Track, the President will negotiate and sign TPP without congressional approval. Afterwards, Congress will have an up or down vote with no public airing of the content via hearings, no testimony from experts and no amendments. According to leaked documents, the TPP would establish international trade tribunals with more power than governments. This is done by allowing corporations to sue governments whose laws or policies adversely impact expected future profits. Similar provisions in NAFTA have resulted in the overturning of many environmental and consumer protection laws. Judges in this system would consist mostly of corporate lawyers on leave from their regular jobs with multinational corporations. In this rigged system, appeals would not be allowed. There have been many protests against the Trans Pacific Partnership. Margaret Flowers, MD, who dressed as a workman to attach a sign to the front of the US Trade Representative said that “the TPP will undermine health care systems, make pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices more expensive and therefore increase pain and suffering and even cost people their lives.” Flowers an advocate for a national health care plan that treats health care as a human right rather than a commodity warned that “The TPP will undermine the excellent single payer health care systems in Japan, Australia and New Zealand and make it more difficult for the United States to put in place a single payer system — which is what most Americans and doctors want to see.” The Fast Track is a blatant attack on democratic rights and democratic government. Congressmen and Congresswomen opposing Fast Track are Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), and many others. Sen. Warren noted in her letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, “if transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.” Folks have the right to openly debate an agreement that will empower corporations to dominate our lives from food, water, health care, wages, jobs, the Internet, etc.  The full content of the TPP is not fully known. A new report from the Center for Economic Policy and Research finds that the TPP will produce small economic growth of only 1/10th of 1 percent per year, but it will hurt working Americans as 90 percent of workers will see their income reduced as a result of the TPP. Unions including the Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO and Teamsters have raised serious concerns about the TPP’s impact on working families, and doctors have also highlighted consequences for access to health care and life-saving medicines. There has been opposition to the treaty in Japan and Malaysia. Readily, transnational corporations control and design free trade agreements like the TPP.


We know that economists and policymakers have harmed the U.S. economy. We know that the economy has been damaged by the poor suffering and the offshoring of middle class jobs (for the benefit of corporate profits). It is self-evident that the Federal Reserve's policy of Quantitative easing has not worked. It is only primarily utilized to support oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. QE not only distorts bond and stock markets. It threatens the value of the dollar and it has caused the manipulation of the gold price as well. It is easy to witness that when U.S. corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy. The economy then suffers less employment, less economic growth, a reduced state, local, and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of legitimate social services. When the policymakers allow the big banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. There has been no real, honest report on the condition of the banks made by the authorities. Time will tell if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the U.S. dollars. Allowing the big banks to fall and be reorganized would be much cheaper. That is why some want to break up the big banks too. Many economics and U.S. policymakers let their country bad badly. Some of them claim that these trends are necessary to develop the new economy from the old economy. Yet, for over a decade, U.S. jobs statistics show no sign of the promised new economy at all after jobs were moved offshore. The same policymakers and economists believe in the lie that the markets are self-regulating and that the financial sector could safely be deregulated (along with confusing jobs offshoring with free trade). It is obvious that offshoring jobs are destructive to the U.S. economy. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, “the recovery” is entirely the artifact of the understated measure of inflation used to deflate nominal GDP. By under-measuring inflation, the government can show low, but positive, rates of real GDP growth. No other indicator supports the claim of radical economic recovery. John Williams writes that consumer inflation, if properly measured, is running around 9%, far above the 2% figure that is the Fed’s target and more in line with what consumers are actually experiencing. We have just had a 6.5% annual increase in the cost of a postage stamp. The Fed’s target inflation rate is said to be low, but Simon Black points out that the result of a lifetime of 2% annual inflation is the loss of 75% of the purchasing power of the currency. He uses the cost of sending a postcard to illustrate the decline in the purchasing power of median household income today compared to 1951. That year it cost one cent to send a post card. As household income was $4,237, the household could send 423,700 postcards. Today the comparable income figure is $51,017. As it costs 34 cents to send one postcard, today’s household can only afford to send 150,050 postcards. Nominal income rose 12 times, and the cost of sending a postcard rose 34 times. Americans know about the destructive "free trade agreements." These agreements are nothing more than ruling class tools to moving jobs abroad. The new effort by the corporations to loot and defraud the public is called the "Trans-Pacific Partnership." The TPP deals with fast tracking. The bill allows corporations to write the bill in secret without congressional input. Some research proves that 90% of all Americans will suffer income losses under TPP while wealth becomes more concentrated at the top. The TPP deals with our lives from what we eat, the Internet, and to the environment.  According to Kevin Zeese in Alternet, “the leak of the [TPP] Intellectual Property Chapter revealed that it created a path to patent everything imaginable, including plants and animals, to turn everything into a commodity for profit.” The TPP is secretly drafted. It allows the executive branch to change existing U.S. law to make the laws that were not passed in secret compatible with the security written trade bill. Theoretically, buy American requirements and any attempt to curtail jobs offshoring would become illegal restraint on trade. The House and the Senate should never turn over their legislative functions to the executive branch at all. The financial media has helped the FED and the banks to cover the issues with the TPP up. Last week interest rates on 30 day T-bills have turned negative or people were paying more for a bond than it would return at maturity. An event similar to the Cyprus banks' limits on withdrawals, last Friday (January 24) the BBC reported that the large UK bank HSBC is preventing customers from withdrawing cash from their accounts in excess of several thousand pounds. We see threats about the value of the dollar harmed, possible high inflation, exchange controls, pension confiscations possibly, etc. We know that capitalist greed aided and abetted by economists and policymakers have harmed America a great deal. We should fight evil. I have hope for the future though. I never lost my faith in God or in real humanity.

By Timothy