Ukraine and other News during the Weekend

There is the controversy with Ukraine again. President Barack Obama recently said in a statement on Friday that he denounces the reports of military movements taken by Russia in the Ukraine. He warns that “there will be costs for any military intervention.” This comes after the Western stoked regime change operation in Ukraine. This could threaten a conflict between Western powers and Russia (in the form of sanctions, boycotts, etc.). The interim government is in Ukraine now. The interim government wants the USA and Britain to come to their aid, because they accuse Russia of executing an invasion of Ukraine. Arsen Avakov is the new interior minister and member of Fatherland or the party of the oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko. He alleged that the international airport in Sebastopol in the Crimea had been blocked by Russian forces. He wrote on Facebook, “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.” If things continue, a Western military intervention could happen in Ukraine. He is invoking the terms of a 1994 agreement called the Budapest Memorandum. It was signed by ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton, ex-UK Prime Minister John Major, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma in dealing with Ukraine (promising to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons). Article one of the Budapest Memorandum reads: “The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine ... to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” Sir Tony Brenton, the former British Ambassador to Moscow from 2004 to 2008, warned that if Russia was found to have invaded Ukraine, then war could be an option “if we do conclude the Memorandum is legally binding.” The newly-appointed head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, Andriy Parubiy, accused Moscow of commanding armed groups at airports in Crimea. “These are separate groups … commanded by the Kremlin,” Parubiy said. Pariubiy was the co-founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine. That party was the forerunner of the far right Svoboda. He led the right wing militias that spearheaded the coup that bring down the regime of President Viktor Yanukovych, who was more closely aligned with the pro-Russian oligarchs. The militias were composed of members of Svoboda alongside members of the fascist Right Sector. Dmytro Yarosh, head of Right Sector, is Parubiy’s deputy. Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov of Fatherland warned Thursday, referring to Crimea, that “any movements of troops, especially with troops outside that territory will be considered military aggression.” Turchynov yesterday dismissed the head of the armed forces, Admiral Yuriy Ilin, while Parubiy said a state of emergency could be declared—making possible the deployment of the army against Crimea. In Simferopol or Crimea’s administrative center, groups of armed men arrived overnight at the main airport wearing military fatigues. At Sesvastopol airport, a military airport that handles few commercial flights, a reported 300 people of unknown identity arrived. There have been reports of men wearing Russian style uniforms without insignia that flights from Kiev having been barred and that there has been movement of Russian armored personnel carriers and helicopters. The Russian Black Sea fleet was centered at Sevastopol is quoted to have anti-terror measures to protect the fleet and other outposts. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that its maneuvers are part of bilateral agreements. Crimea is mostly native Russian or Russian speaking human beings, so Russia has an interest in that region. Yanukovych said from Russia that he is still Ukraine’s legitimate elected leader and he will continue to fight for the future of Ukraine. He rejects Crimean secession. He wants the Ukraine to be united not divided. US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had reaffirmed to him a commitment that Russia would “respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” echoing a commitment that Putin made to President Barack Obama last week. U.S. Secretary of State wants U.S. assistance to bring Georgia closer to the U.S. and the E.U. Also, the Polish government is sending money to opposition groups in Belarus. Poland is a political ally of America. Washington is in alliance with corrupt oligarchs and fascists gangs as a means to bring Russia in direct opposition to the U.S./European powers. It is hypocritical for the West to talk about national sovereignty when it violates the national sovereignty of nations globally (in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. in the 21st century alone) via the abomination of the war on terror. Also, the West supported many fascist and far right forces involved in the coup of the capital of Kiev. Washington have spent billions of dollars to involve in the domestic, internal affairs of the Ukraine (since the 1990’s and  this has been admitted by the undersecretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, Victoria Nuland. She admitted these words last December). Nuland herself made at least four trips to Kiev in the course of the recent upheavals, handing out bread and cookies to the neo-fascist “protesters” in Independence Square and holding meetings with opposition figures Arseny Yatseniuk, Vitali Klitschko—referred to as “Yats” and “Klitsch” in her infamous recorded conversation with the US ambassador—as well as with the leader of the anti-Semitic and fascistic Svoboda party, Oleh Tyahnybok. Stalinism betrayed the interests of the working class in Ukraine, Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union, as well as internationally. The privileged bureaucrats transformed themselves into capitalists, plundering and monopolizing the social wealth built up in the 75 years since the October 1917 revolution. America and Russia should both clean up their houses at the end of the day. 

 The GCHQ and the NSA has collected webcam images from 1.8 million Yahoo users. Under the program code named “Optic Nerve,” the British government Communications Headquarters or the GCHQ worked in conjunction with the NSA have collected webcam images in bulk and saved them to agency databases. There has been documents obtained by the Guardian (as found in their article, “Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ”) proved that the GCHQ targeted 1.8 million webcam users in a single six-month period in 2008. Collection of images has been carried out indiscriminately, without regard to whether users were targets of an intelligence investigation. The operations collected imagery from the webcams by saving screen shots every five minutes during live video chats. The GCHQ documents also mention possible surveillance efforts involving other web based video technologies including the Xbox 360 “Kinect” camera and indicate that Optic Nerve was still active as of 2012. Yahoo has responded to the disturbing news. They have shown the following statement on the matter: “…This report, if true, represents a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy that is completely unacceptable, and we strongly call on the world’s government to reform surveillance law consistent with the principles we outlined in December.” There have been Yahoo criticisms, but the major telecommunications companies have been collaborating with the NSA’s surveillance operations for years. There is the PRISM surveillance program. This program had been systematically spying on millions of users of Skype, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and others since 2007. An NSA document was leaked by Edward Snowden last year. The document stated that PRISM relies on “…assistance of communications providers in the US” and specifically lists AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk and Yahoo with the dates on which they “joined” PRISM. Optic Nerve has also been involved in experimental efforts with facial recognition technology..." A GCHQ document cited by the Guardian shows that the agency has sought to develop the capability to search through ongoing webcam sessions for faces already included in the database. The program collected information via GCHQ’s “Internet cable taps” operated by the agency’s TEMPORA program. This was when the agency dips directly into the fiber optic lines that carry vast quantities of data around the world. The Guardian noted that there is the close collaboration of U.S. intelligence with its British partner, “Optic Nerve was based on collecting information from GCHQ’s huge network of internet cable taps, which was then processed and fed into systems provided by the NSA. Webcam information was fed into NSA’s XKeyscore search tool, and NSA research was used to build the tool which identified Yahoo’s webcam traffic.” The Guardian reported that the webcam material has a large number of sexually explicit materials in the realm of 3-11 percent of all of the images gotten. This shows that the U.S. and British government continue to violate democratic rights and the privacy of humanity. Much of the acts of the Western elites are targeting the population as a whole not just suspected “terrorists.” Many political entities target independent political groups too. (There is the GCHQ document proving also how the government units try to discredit political activism). Also this week, the Justice Department sought permission from the FISA court for the NSA to retain telephone metadata on an indefinite basis. This data includes phone records for millions of Americans, showing when they placed calls, with whom they spoke, and for how long. “The United States must ensure that all potentially relevant evidence is retained which includes the [business records] metadata obtained in bulk from certain telecommunications service providers pursuant to this court’s production orders,” said the Justice Department filing. Current rules form the FISA court limit retention of metadata by the NSA to five years. The Justice Departments wants the data to be kept indefinitely to maintain evidence relevant to lawsuits brought against the government by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil liberties groups. So, the surveillance state being nefarious is an understatement. 

Judge Mathis has been a real man that overcame much adversity. For him to help those who are suffering outlines his strength and compassion. He obviously cares about black youth. Life for many after prison is extremely difficult. That is why we should address the prison industrial complex and find unique ways to assist those who paid their debt to society. The Sister Michelle Alexander has written excellent literature on this issue greatly. Rick Ross is wrong on many levels. It is ironic that he claims to want to help society, but he tries to copy the name and image of an ex-drug dealer (who used drugs to exploit his own community for profit decades ago). He uses the N word and Trayvon Martin was never the N word. So, these rappers should never be Eurocentric, but many folks falsely equate issuing the most degrading lyrics as equivalent with being pro-black. There is nothing pro-black about advancing lyrics that promote materialism, misogyny, capitalist exploitation, degrading Brothers and Sisters in the most obscene terminology possible, etc. Also, hip hop is not monolithic. Many hip hop artists are progressive and do advance legitimate messages that inspire people to believe in justice and so forth. Rick Ross ought to change course. We owe it to the family of Trayvon Martin to do what is right, improve our lives, and to fight for the radical building in our communities. Therefore, we should not be reactionaries, but we have to advance real hope for our people (and advancing revolutionary thinking in our communities that deals with self-determination, love of our black heritage, and further inspiration to battle against extrajudicial murders of innocent, unarmed black people). Now, we do realize that this situation is bigger than Rick Ross. This issue is about a systematic situation where structures and corrupt institutions oppress black people (and we have to end these corrupt institutions as a means to have true change. Rappers should not be blamed completely for our conditions as a people at all). Black life is devalued all of the time. Even black children being killed causes many to still not value the life of black youth in the world society. Yet, we still can't be silent. Laws that encourage vigilantism ought to be abolished too. We have to do more than talk about being opposed to unjust violence. We have to be part of a proactive solution. It is a shame that Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Aiyana Jones are not here in the world physically. They were murdered by sick, perverted human beings. One brother was right that even some of the police acts as brutish savages. Zimmerman and Michael Dunn have no respect from me at all. Still, we should thrive for excellence in our lives. Evil folks want us to give up and just love the status quo. No, we should not love the quo. We have every right to stand, to fight, and to fight for strong improvement in our communities. It is naturally for us to fight and we will fight. We will not only fight black on black violence, but we will fight white on black murder too. Those of us in the right side of this fight will always value black life in a great fashion.

Many of the speakers outlined profoundly legitimate words of inspiration and advice (at the Senator Tim Scott event that deals with Black History Month and black political power). Any human being should reject materialism, narcissism, and strive for excellence in their lives. We should be cordial and respectful toward human beings. I have a thought in my mind too. What are the principles that many seek as a product of this bipartisanship. I think that in this society, we can't seek total compromise with a system that doesn't make revolutionary change a reality in the world. In the final analysis, the PEOPLE should organize their power and strength as a means to advocate voting rights protection, economic justice, an end to this wicked war on terror, and to develop alternative solutions (like forming cooperatives, etc. We need more democratic direct participation among the lives of the people as the capitalist exploitation of our communities has been disgraceful for centuries). We are in opposition to the crooked police officers who harm our Brothers and our Sisters. We are in opposition to black on black crime and white on black crime (including any unjust crime). We are in opposition to the capitalist funded prison industrial complex that Michelle Alexander has eloquently written about. So, we are in the right side of history on these important issues. We will fight. We have every right to fight CLASS and RACIAL oppression. I don't agree with Tim Scott on every issue (his "joke" about being afraid to be in the presence of so many people from across the aisle is disturbing to say the least. I think that the Tea Party has a heavily reactionary agenda that I can't follow). Tim Scott should condemn the white supremacist system period. He should say that the ghetto is domestic colony of the current power structure (as Dr. King said) and that imperialism (that is existing now too) is antithetical to the goals and aspirations of people of black African descent globally. He should say that we should use all means to fight institutions that discriminate, that harm the poor, and try to use oppression against the human family. Again, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right to say that there must be radical redistribution of economic & political power. For those who don't like that, the serfs during the 19th century fought against the czars for the czar's unfairness against them (then power was redistributed as a means for the serfs to achieve human rights). The black people in Africa fought European imperialism and power was redistributed as a means to end overt imperialism. So, it is not wrong to call for these things at all. I think that the common good is superior to select corporate interests (for it is the common wealth of humanity that needs to be advanced as a means to enrich the lives of all of the PEOPLE). We need more strong grassroots political activity and self-empowerment. The development of new revolutionary, democratic organizations and associations (that are independent) can be part of the solution too. IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, IT IS ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE.

This is a personal issue for all of us. I am brown skin in hue and I know for a fact that my oldest dark skinned blood Brother suffered more bigotry, colorism and racism pound for pound than I ever did in my life. He is certainly a strong black man and he is doing great things in his life. Now, colorism is an abomination. We all agree on this. Regardless if we are light, brown, or dark, we as black people should be treated the same (with dignity and with respect). I wish we lived in a world where we don't have to talk about these things, but we do. We do because the evil of racism and prejudice has not been eliminated in the world. We have to talk about this issue since ignorant folks still believe that inferiorities exist among black human beings based on skin complexion, which is an utter lie. We have to hear stories on black people who are the victims of colorism too. We have to hear what they have gone through as a means to understand their struggle and be inspired to do something to end colorism (which is based upon faux white supremacist views on beauty). We can't be silent on this issue and we have to be progressive enough to embrace our total BLACKNESS irrespective of our skin complexion. Dark skinned black people have every right to live their lives without stereotyping and without ridicule. In our daily lives, we have to be righteous and stand up against anyone and I do mean anyone (even some black people) who expresses colorism publicly or privately. Many people need to realize the beauty of women in every skin color and not get caught up in a fetish of worshiping white European features as being superior to black African features. Many blacks who do the escapism act try to find security and emotional wellbeing. All too often, they find even more racism and bigotry than previously. It is just commonsense to build in our own community. Even Dr. King believed that we need the building of black owned institutions. We all know what Malcolm X felt on the issue. Enough said. A black person advancing other communities' interests (without advancing their own black people's interests) is selfish, evil, and a betrayal of their own people. We can call it as we see it. We have to clean up our HOUSE before we see true liberation. With the situation in our community, I will never go into a fantasy and try to disregard the struggle of black people. We are part of the African community, because we are all Africans. We have to need to have the KNOWLEDGE OF SELF and love for our black heritage first. If we can't respect ourselves, we can't respect others. That is the reality of the situation. Their own insecurities (and jealousies about the BEAUTY OF BLACKNESS. NOTHING IS SUPERIOR TO THE BEAUTY OF BLACKNESS at all) cause them to artificially create faux beauty standards. They infect society with bigoted propaganda that runs against the concrete truth that all humans are created equal. The current system has been manipulative, materialistic, and nefarious. That is why we must advocate a radical revolutionary change of values (from materialism to altruism and from the status quo to true justice). Power has been unfairly owned by a select elite and that is why we need a radical redistribution of political and economic power as the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said. Also, I have been researching about democratic cooperatives too. Yes, more folks should realize how important the colorism issue is. The good news is that more people are talking about it as found in the Dark Girls documentary and the OWN TV discussion about this issue. We have to discuss about this issue too as a means for us to heal and make ourselves whole as black people. BLACK UNITY is one great means to adhere to as well. Obviously, Lupita is a very beautiful Sister too. This battle for our liberation is psychological and we have to be psychologically strong to fight back against anti-black propaganda. There are tons of beautiful black women of many skin complexions from Carmelita Jeter to Pam Grier. So, we have to understand ourselves, respect ourselves, and defend ourselves. ALL SHADES OF BLACK ARE BEAUTIFUL INDEED. BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL.

By Timothy