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Monday, April 13, 2015

Hillary Clinton running for President and other News


Hillary Clinton's announcement comes as no surprise. She wants to talk in small gatherings as a way for her to develop her social connections with people. Hillary Clinton may face others in the Democratic primary race, but she is favored to concretely win the primary. Many of her views are overtly hawkish and neoliberal. On some foreign policy issues, she is to the right of President Obama. 2016 is very close and we know the neoliberal legacy of Bill Clinton. Bill not only cut welfare, but he supported three strikes which grew the prison industrial complex. Her links to Wall Street banking interests are well known. I will wait until 2016 and decide who to vote for. Will I vote for her? No. Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nominator. This 2016 Presidential campaign could be the election where the most money spent in a campaign throughout American history. The American financial aristocracy funds both big business parties. The select corporations control the vast majority of the mainstream media too. On November 8, 2016, the national election will come about. Wall Street interests at home and abroad have been strengthened in the past few decades. After Ted Cruz announced his candidacy publicly, he raised about $31 million. Jeb Bush could announce his candidacy son as well.  According to a revealing report in the Washington Post last week, so-called bundlers who played a vital role in earlier campaigns by combining donor checks into bundles totaling $100,000 or more are now generally ignored by the top candidates. Their cash input is considered insignificant compared to what the “super-PACs” can obtain in one check from billionaires such as the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and George Soros. There is a huge list of Republican candidates running for the President like Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, etc. Today, the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that Jeb Bush is seen as the “moderate.” We know what most Americans want. Even polls shows that most Americans want increases in taxes on the wealthy to fund social programs and provide jobs for the unemployed. Most Americans oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Most of the American people want investments in education, health care, and other public services. Most people oppose government spying on the telephone and Internet usage of ordinary Americans. Most Americans want a fair criminal justice system and an end to police state laws. Most people oppose unjustified military interventions in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.



First, we all have to recognize the revolutionary history and spirit found in Jamaica. The heroic Maroons fought white supremacist oppression as a way for black people to be free from injustice (and oppression). People like Sam Sharpe acted as a hero too. The Jamaican people are known for their splendid kindness, hospitality (with amazing intelligence and compassion), and strength. Caribbean culture is beautiful from the music, cuisine, and to the flora. The President going into Jamaica and enjoying himself is fine with me. He listening to the music of Bob Marley is fine with me. Likewise, we have to be honest and recognize that life hasn’t been a crystal stair for us. We know that the PTB has oppressed us as a people for long centuries. So, we have to continue to advocate an end to police brutality, we will continuously fight for social justice, and we will continue to stand up for our interests as black people. Imperialism and poverty are evils that must be eradicated. If other ethnic groups stand up regularly for their aspirations and interests, then we as black people have the subsequent right to do the same. Economic rights have been talked about by many people. Economic rights deal with the right of people to not be economically exploited in a vicious fashion, the right of people to have economic justice, and the right of working people to be treated fair (as the labor rights movement fought against corrupt people as a means for that movement to help establish various workers' rights). In essence, economic rights are related to workers' rights and human rights. I don't believe in laissez faire capitalism. I reject neoliberalism. The Middle East grown more complex with the growth of ISIS, the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Israel, Saudi attacks in Yemen, etc. We have to know about these events and advocate for justice too.



Systematic racism (which has existed in this nation for long centuries) and class oppression are serious problems in America. We do have an epidemic of police terrorism in America and throughout the Earth. Even the DOJ has found massive racism among many of the cops of Ferguson. Research has found massive police injustice in the city of Cleveland as well (when one cop killed Tamir Rice in less than 3 seconds). We have to be honest about our situation. When black people fear being killed by the police even if they are doing nothing wrong, then we have a serious problem here. Also, we have to confront massive income inequality and the reality of how the oligarchy has stolen the wealth of the masses of the people as a way for them to exploit the masses of the people. The 2005 decision that doesn’t allow the police to explicitly protect the community is similar to the Warren v. District of Columbia decision too. The Supreme Court has ruled that police is not required to protect the citizens constitutionally. This decision refutes the mantra among some that the police must be deified and they are here to “protect us.” We see the government giving local police militarized weapons (and members of both major parties supporting this nefarious action). We see the police in Ferguson using tear gas and sound weapons on even peaceful protesters (including children) back during the summer of 2014. Even innocent journalists were falsely arrested by law enforcement. Therefore, it is obvious who the police institution works for and it isn’t for the masses of the people. They have an allegiance to the interests of oligarchy and the military industrial complex. We not only have massive economic inequality (we know how the corporate elite exploits the poor economically in unfair ways. That is evil). We also have massive anti-black biases that are common in American society. Those biases have led to discrimination and racism against a lot of black people, which is wrong (and it must end). Police occupation readily causes distrust and fear in communities. Black people have every right to resist this tyranny. We, as black people, will continue to stand up and speak up for our human rights. The story of the man killing 3 girls is a total tragedy and we all send condolences to the mother of the three girls as well. The police brutality that existed in Selma over 50 years ago continues today. Right now, the police have killed over 300 people alone (over 100 people in being killed in March) in America.




The Oslo Accords was to be finished by May of 1999. The Likud Party (in Israel) returned to power in 1996-1999. During that time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided engaging seriously in the Oslo process, which he fundamentally opposed. This will be a pattern as Netanyahu is the known hardliner then and now. A Labor-led coalition government headed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak came to power in 1999. Barak at first concentrated on reaching a peace agreement with Syria. That strategy was done in trying to weakening the Palestinian. Barak failed to convince the Syrians to sign agreement. So, Ehud Barack turned his attention to the Palestinians. During this interim period of the Oslo process, the Israeli Labor and Likud governments allowed the escalation of dramatic settlement building and land confiscations in the Occupied Territories. They constructed a network of bypass roads to enable Israeli settlers to travel from their settlements to Israel proper without passing through Palestinian-inhabited areas. These projects were understood by most Palestinians as marking out territory that Israel sought to annex in the final settlement. The Oslo accords didn’t have a mechanism to block these unilateral actions or Israel’s violations of Palestinian human and civil rights in areas under its control. The final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians only got underway in earnest in mid-2000. During this time, a series of Israel interim withdrawals left the Palestinian Authority with direct or partial control of some 40 percent of the West Bank and 65 percent of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian areas were surrounded by Israel-controlled territory with entry and exit controlled by Israel. President Bill Clinton on July of 2000 invited Barak and Arafat to Camp David to conclude negotiations on the long overdue final status agreement. Before they met, Barak proclaimed about his red lines.” This is about Israel would not return to its pre-1967 borders; East Jerusalem with its 175,000 (now about 200,000) Jewish settlers would remain under Israeli sovereignty; Israel would annex settlement blocs in the West Bank containing some 80 percent of the 180,000 (now about 360,000) Jewish settlers; and Israel would accept no legal or moral responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The Palestinians, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and their understanding of the spirit of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, sought Israeli withdrawal from the vast majority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem, and recognition of an independent state in those territories.


The Camp David summit didn’t result in an agreement, because both parties disagreed with issues of Jerusalem and the refugees. Although Barak offered a far more extensive proposal for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank than any other Israeli leader had publicly considered, Barak wanted Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Palestinians didn’t agree with that proposal including most in the Muslim world. Arafat gained more stature after he left Camp David. The reason is that he was seen as not bowing down to American and Israeli pressure. Barak had a political crisis within his own government. There was the departure of the coalition partners who felt that he offered the Palestinians too much. The future of Jerusalem question was very taboo. Some Israelis for the first time ever believed that they will have to learn to live with the conflict indefinitely, because the Palestinians would never accept their proposals being imposed on them. The second intifada occurred on late September 2000. This new intifada started because a combination of Palestinians suffering humiliations daily, Palestinian frustration over their plight in Occupied Territories, and corruption found in the Palestinian Authority. On September 28, Likud candidate for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount (Noble Sanctuary) accompanied by 1,000 armed guards. This was an outright provocation. In light of Sharon’s well-known call for maintaining Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, this move provoked large Palestinian protests in Jerusalem. The following day, Palestinians threw rocks at Jews praying at the Western Wall. Israeli police then stormed the Temple Mount and killed at least four and wounded 200 unarmed protesters. By the end of the day Israeli forces killed three more Palestinians in Jerusalem. These killing caused massive demonstrations and clashes across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip In October of 2000, there were huge solidarity demonstrations. A general strike in Arabic and mixed towns in Israel came about. The police killed 12 unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel. This second intifada was much bloodier than the first. During the first three weeks of the uprising, Israeli forces shot 1 million live bullets at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.


By Timothy

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