I am not stunned. I knew that
this would be the case. It is wild to witness that black life is further
disrespected. It is so disgraceful to witness the defense outline the life of
Jordan Davis in such slanderous terms during the duration of the trial. Malcolm
X had it right when he said that in a racist society, the victim is slandered
as equivalent to a criminal. Jordan Davis was an innocent, unarmed human being.
The 2 black jurors have shown strength, so I will never scapegoat them. They
heroically fought the good fight. The murderer was never convicted of murder.
It is a shame. They give us a bone, because obviously they hate our existence.
There are no other words to describe it. SYG gives nothing but license for
deranged, racists to kill Brothers and Sisters in the world. It has ambiguities
and it encourages vigilantism. SYG has been funded by the organization ALEC, so
we know what time it is. SYG should be eliminated from the books. The
prosecution did not show the racist letters, Michael Dunn's previous evil
conduct, and other powerful evidence strongly enough. Killing a young, unarmed
black human being over music is truly evil. They give us a bone since they view
us with contempt and abhorrence. So, we should not be satisfied with some bone
as others (like my Homegirl from Texas) have eloquently mentioned. In the final analysis, the judicial system is
corrupt. When you got folks from across the political spectrum exposing the
corrupt judicial system, then you know we have a serious problem. I knew this
would happen. He was convicted on 4 out of the 5 counts. The other count deals
with a mistrial. This is such an open and shut case in my view. As far as I am
concerned, he should have been found guilty on all counts. I knew that he would
never have been found not-guilty on all counts by the jury, because the
injustice against Jordan Davis was so blatantly evil. So far, he is acquitted
of murder and manslaughter. Every count that he has been convicted of doesn't
deal with direct murder at all. Therefore, we should never tone down our call
for justice here. We should continue to speak out and to help our people day in
and day out. We all pray for the family of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin.
Also, the SYG law has to be eliminated completely. We have to continue to value
the life of black males. Angela Corey failed in both the Zimmerman case and the
Michael Dunn case. She should not lead any effort for a retrial of the first
degree murder charge at all. Governor Scott has been an extremist in Florida.
It is not surprising to see a white racist man to be acquitted of murder when
he murdered an innocent, unarmed black male. As others have said, it is open
season of black youth in Florida and throughout the Earth too. They could care
less about black people's lives in general. As a great Sister from Texas has written,
we have to learn the law, so we can adequately address the unjust laws that are
in existence (these laws have blood on their lands literally). This trial
proves that we need each other to fight back period. The family of Jordan Davis
is gracious, strong, and very compassionate. I am speechless too. It is a shame
that some blacks refuse to get the message about these crimes against our
people. We are in a state of emergency and war. We all send prayers to the
family of Jordan Davis.
The U.S. Congress lifts the
federal debt ceiling. The reality of the Congressional votes to suspend the
federal ceiling until March 2015 outlines the power of Wall Street calling the
shots in Washington not the reactionary Tea Party elements. The debt ceiling
increased passed the House on a Tuesday. The U.S. Senate approved the deal on a
Wednesday afternoon. Republican Senators and congressmen couldn't block the
measure. Corporate America via the Chamber of Commerce and other major banks
and brokerage houses demanded that Congress raise the debt ceiling and
authorize payment of interest and principal on U.S. government bonds. The debt
ceiling was reset on February 7 after the temporary extension approved last
October expired. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that due to the payment of
tax refunds and other seasonal outlays, the federal government would exhaust
its cash resources before the end of the month. The major financial interests
didn't want to repeat the partial federal shutdown last October or threat of
default on the federal debt. There has been a deteriorating condition in
financial markets including a sharp fall in the stock market last week. There
has been the rapid flow of capital out of the emerging markets of Brazil,
Turkey, Indonesia, etc. which is making Wall Street wary of any financial
shocks. Now, both the House and the Senate Republican leaders broke
ostentatiously with their Tea Party factions. They gave just enough votes to
enable the Democratic minority in the House to push through the debt ceiling
increase and the Democratic majority in the Senate to top the 60 vote threshold
required to halt debate and force a vote. At a Monday meeting of the House
Republican caucus, Speaker John Boehner announced that there was no way to get
the 218 votes required for passage of a debt ceiling increase tied to any
specific policy measure, such as a restoration of cuts in military pensions or
changes in the Affordable Care Act. Nearly all 200 Democrats were committed to
a clean debt ceiling bill or one that has no policy measures attached to it (as
demanded by the White House). Many dozen or so Republicans were committed to
opposing any increase in the debt ceiling, no matter what policy measures were
attached to it as a "sweetener." Boehner was compelled to drop his
insistence that only bills with majority support from the Republican caucus
would be brought to the floor of the House for a vote. This allowed the debt
ceiling to pass by 221 to 201. It has near unanimous Democratic support and the
votes of 28 of the 233 Republicans. The 28 Republicans included Boehner himself
and the bulk of the party leadership in the House (as well as a group of more
senior Republicans who have announced plans to retire and hence will not be
facing challenges in the 2014 primaries or the general election). The climb
down by the House Republican leadership and setback for the Tea Party faction
were widely were widely noted. McClatchy News Service headlined its report,
“Tea Party loses as House approves debt ceiling increase without condition.”
The later Senate vote to approve the suspension of the debt ceiling was equally
revealing of the crisis in the Republican Party. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas
objected over it and Cruz is a Tea Party person. Since such a vote (or to cut
off debate), called “cloture” in Senate parlance, requires 60 votes out of the
100 members of the Senate, the Democratic majority of 55 could not close debate
on its own. Cruz’s parliamentary maneuver thus had the effect of forcing a
section of the Republican caucus to join with the Democrats to close debate, or
else the debt ceiling measure would have failed. In the end, McConnell, Cornyn
and 10 other Republican senators joined with the Democrats to impose cloture by
a 67-31 vote. The actual debt ceiling measure was passed by a 55-43 vote, with
all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans opposing it. The Tea Party crowd
denounced Boehner, McConnell, and other Republicans who voted for the bill. But
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a corporate-backed
lobby for lower taxes on business and the wealthy, pointed to the fact that the
bill followed a bipartisan budget deal that maintained the “sequester” spending
cuts and left tax rates unchanged. The Tea Party came about in 2009. It never
had a majority of popular support on all of its agendas at all. It has been
funded by a handful of billionaires like Charles and Edward Koch. The role of
the Tea Party is the mobilize sections of the upper middle class as a means to
push the U.S. two party system further to the right. They exploited fears as a
means to mischaracterize a centrist ACA law as government run health care. But
the Tea Party elements never enjoyed wide political support either in the
working class or middle class for the ultra-right policies promoted by the Koch
brothers and their retinue of paid propagandists. Under conditions of deepening
financial crisis, the most powerful sections of the US ruling elite have now
stepped in, brushing aside the Tea Party demagogues and insisting that the
interests of Wall Street be served. This proved the phony character of this
supposed grassroots movement. Both parties in their leadership serve the
interests of big business.
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.
Architecture is important to
know, study, and understand. It has existed for thousands of years. There are
complex reasons for architecture to exist or to be formulated. In life, we see
that corporations and material objects are not superior to the human mind and
the human spirit. There is the intrinsic value of the human life. With the
recent events, we certainly need to reject mass consumption and
materialism. These items are preventing
what America has its potential to become. We are the generation that has
discovered more of the secrets behind much architecture spanning the four
corners of the world. Many famous buildings are built on ley lines. Many of
ancient man believe that ley lines have spiritual power and many cities and buildings
are built on them to harness energy, etc. Also, the Sochi Winter Olympic
complex is famous too for many reasons. First, the symbolism must be shown
about the original ceremony and other things about the event. The 2014 Winter
Olympic Games has the Russian built a huge Olympic Stadium. It shows the
history of Russia via various symbolism and scenes. There was the huge double
headed eagle that was splashed across the screen among other various Russia
symbols. One of the symbols was the double headed eagle. The double headed
eagle existed for thousands of years. It was famous for its usage in the
Byzantine Empire and it was been used in the ancient secrets of the mysteries.
The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is famous for incorporating the double headed
eagle and Russian Coat of Arms. The double headed eagle represents the law of opposites
or balance in equilibrium. In the ancient doctrines of the mystery schools,
human and Nature want be in balance among opposites as a means for life to have
completion and enlightenment. The two heads in the doubled headed eagle image
acts as one. The three horses in the opening ceremony were symbolic of the
troika bird or a famous cultural icon of Russia. The horses pull a sun. There
ceremony shows the history of the Soviet Union as gears in motion. The whole Fisht Olympic Stadium is named
after Mount Fisht. It has a 40,000 person capacity. The stadium was created by
Populous and British design consultancy Buro Happold. The stadium's walls and
roof are one continuous glass surface. They are designed to reflect sunlight
off the sea during the day. It was opened in 2013 and it cost $779 million to
build the stadium. In October 2013, the Central Bank of Russia issued a
commemorative 100 ruble note. This was a hundred days before the start of the
winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The blue tinted banknote depicts a flying
snowboarder on one side, and on the other the Fisht Olympic Stadium and a
firebird. The location of the Sochi Olympics is taking place in the Caucasus
Mountains. We know the historical significance of those mountains. Now, the
Sochi mascots are called Snowflake and Ray of Light. There is a coin called
Prometheus, which has tons of esoteric meaning. Prometheus in legend stole fire
form Mount Olympics and gave it to the people. A commemorative coin of
copper-nickel with a denomination of 25 roubles featuring mascots of the XI
Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi – Ray of Light and Snowflake – will also be
released. Prometheus is said to be chained in the Caucasus Mountains. Not to
mention that the countdown Sochi clock is triangular in shape looking similar
to a Pyramid. Many other researchers have found out about the Merkahah
connection to the ceremony.
Clarence Thomas believes in a quasi-post
racial narrative (the Jewish people are told to never forget the Holocaust and
many Native Americans are told to never forget their oppression either), which
I disagree with profoundly. Ideologically, I don’t agree with Clarence Thomas’
total agenda. Clarence Thomas has the right to his views. In a free society,
even views that I abhor has the right to be expressed, so human beings can listen
to many perspectives and make up their own minds. To be independent, you even
have to allow folks that you disagree with have that opportunity to outline
their views. In that fashion, you can more readily refute their arguments in my
view. At the final analysis, with the events of Michael Dunn’s death, you can
never have black liberation with the minimization of the discussion of race.
The problem is that we are not too sensitive when dealing with the subject of
race. It is that we are not sensitive enough when discussing about race,
because many young blacks just try to go along to get along without the true
KNOWLEDGE OF SELF (and some black youth even support non-blacks calling them
slurs and degrading them). Our people are dying in the streets and many blacks
want to ignore that we are at war literally. So, Clarence Thomas is allied with
corporate interests like Monsanto, he supported the ruling that restricted
voting rights, and he is allied with the reactionary movement (that could care
less about ending white supremacy and establishing a system of justice for all
black people and the rest of the human race). CLARENCE THOMAS ALLYING WITH THE
WHITE RACIST BIGOT RUSH LIMBAUGH IS ENOUGH FOR ME TO NOT ALLY IDEOLOGICALLY
WITH THOMAS AT ALL. THAT IS THE SMOKING GUN. Also, bigotry has been shown by
folks from across the political spectrum. That is true, but we can never see
the light unless we expose the origin of the cause of our OPPRESSION in the
first place. Thomas’ error is that he refuses to expose the corruption in the
system of WHITE SUPREMACY that harms the black community. See, you need to both
believe in BOTH INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY among all black people and COLLECTIVE
power among black people to fight oppression. Also, the GOP establishment has oppressed
black people with their Southern Strategy, their invention of the War on Drugs,
anti-voting laws, law and order reactionary agenda, and other acts. It is
bigger than Clarence Thomas since we have to confront our own issues that deal
with crime, poverty, educational issues, etc. We have to confront the racist
judiciary system in the States and it is racist. Every other industrialized
nation has universal health care except the United States of America. That is a
disgrace. The social systems of the Netherlands, France, Denmark, etc. aren't
perfect, but they embrace universal health care and other social democratic
principles. There is nothing right with the right of collective bargaining, the
right to fight for full employment, etc. There should be a shift of resources
form military spending to programs of social uplift including social
reconstruction. We also know of the hypocritical, nefarious nature of
capitalism in society. Later Malcolm X, noting King's comments about how
countries in Scandinavia less wealthy than the USA accomplished these things,
queries King and asks whether he (King) understands the significance of his own
report. Malcolm X pointed out explicitly and PUBLICLY what King wrote
privately: That these countries were SOCIALIST, and that this was an essential
difference between Sweden and the USA. The reason why our country has sprawling
slums while Sweden does not. (You can find Malcolm's comments in MALCOLM X
SPEAKS. Malcolm and Martin were LEFT radicals, not liberals, but revolutionaries.
At a 1967 "National Conference for a New Politics" held in Chicago
King said: "[W]e have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that
capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and
sacrifices. The fact is that capitalism was built on the EXPLOITATION and
suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the
poor, both black and white, both here and abroad..." There must be a
revolutionary change of society in order for us to witness a real society. Even
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right to say that we need a radical
redistribution of political and economic power as a means to witness our
liberation. We have seen the gap between the super-rich and the rest for over
three decades. The menace of the prison industrial complex has grown in part of
the War on Drugs.
By Timothy
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