Political News in early May of 2015

Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry must be combated. The recent Islamphobic event in Garland, Texas definitely exposes the anti-Muslim bigotry found in America. That event has been supported by the reactionary Islamophobe Pamela Geller. Geller heads the organization called the AFDI or the American Freedom Defense Initiative. The meeting want to promote anti-Muslim speakers and utilize a contest to see who can draw the best disrespectful image of Muhammad. There was a recent, attack made by two gunmen in that meeting. The 2 gunmen were killed by the police authorities. Their names are Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi. What the gunmen did was evil and wrong. There has been no conclusive evidence that each man had direct links to ISIS. They once lived in the same apartment complex in Phoenix, Arizona. They traveled into Texas, because they read about Geller’s event entitled, “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest," where "artists" were offered a $10,000 top prize for the best caricature of the Islamic prophet. Simpson was a convert to a militant form of Islam. The FBI investigated him before. He was sentenced to many years of probation for lying to FBI agents about plans to travel to Somalia to “engage in violent jihad.” ISIS claimed to take credit for the Garland attack, but there is no evidence that Simpson and Soofi were ISIS agents at all. Many right wing people have exploited the attack as a means to demonize Muslims or Islam in general. They claim that Islam is a threat to human life in America, but they have no problems supporting the evil war on terror, which has ruined the lives of so many people in the Middle East and throughout the world. Geller says that this is a war between the West and Islamic terrorism. She claims to support free speech, but she uses her agenda to stifle free speech that she doesn’t agree with. A meeting sought to degrade Islam in a racist, xenophobia way has nothing to do with promoting free speech. It has to do with provoking more religious tensions in the world. Geller is a hypocrite by talking about free speech, but opposing Park51 (or an Islamic community center) to be built in lower Manhattan near Ground zero. That didn’t occur via the efforts of Geller and other radical conservatives. Geller has tried to place ads on transit system in cities across America denouncing Muslims as violent radicals and “savages.’ Geller has say things about the President and his mother that I can’t mention here. Geller promotes the lie that there is a secret plan to make America a gigantic Muslim caliphate. We know that Muslims today have experienced abuse and attacks in mosques by bigots worldwide (including in America). Geller vocally approved fascists like the English Defense League and the dead South African white supremacist racist Eugene Terreblanche. So, Geller may cover up her lies on CNN, but we know the truth about her. She supported AFDI event speaker Geert Wilders (a member of the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands. Geert wants the Koran banned and wants no immigration from people from Muslim majority countries). Therefore, we are up against Islamophobia. An evil act by two gunmen is not representative of a majority of Muslims on Earth. Also, Muslims in America have every right to express themselves. We will not be silent. We will speak up against Geller’s extremism.




It has been more than 70 years since VE Day or the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich. The Soviet military contributed a great deal in defeating the Nazi fascists. Their sacrifice, their courage, and their dedication to eradicate Hitler’s Nazi forces should be acknowledged and honored. Many Western leaders have ignored this celebration, but I will not. We should celebrate the ending of Nazi rule in Europe and we have to still fight fascism in our time, which exists even in Europe today. The Soviet working class had a central role in defeating fascism in Europe. 27 Soviet citizens lost their lives during World War II. It is obvious that the Stalinist leadership of the Soviet Union and the Cominetern made errors in the beginning of WWII. Stalin believed in the reactionary view of “socialism in one country.” Adolf Hitler murdered many members of the German working class. He abhorred the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD) since he had liberalism and true workers’ rights. Hitler came into power in Germany on January of 1933. Hitler exploited the Reichstag fire as a way for him to crush the organized resistance of the working class. Many Social Democrats, Communists, and trade union leaders were killed or sent to concentration camps. Stalin made the great mistake of exterminating almost all of the surviving leaders of the October Revolution from 1936 to 1938. He purged much of the Red Army in 1937. This purge involved many of the greatest Soviet military leaders with exceptional military expertise like Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Eideman, Kork and Primakov. Stalin signed the nonaggression pact with Hitler on August 23, 1939. That was definitely wrong since Hitler was a brutal fascist who wouldn’t stop until Communism in Russia was gone. Also, Hitler broke agreements before. WWII officially started when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939. Both the Nazis and the Soviets would partition Poland. The Soviets conquer many of the Baltic States too. He annexed parts of Finland. Trotsky predicted that Hitler used German imperialism in trying to conquer Europe and workers internationally must unite to end fascism and establish revolutionary change in the world. Fearing Trotsky far more than Hitler, Stalin ordered intense efforts to carry out his assassination. Ramon Mercader succeeded in killing Trotsky in August 1940. Stalin even signed a temporary deal with Hitler since he felt that Hitler would not invade the Soviet Union. Yet, Hitler wanted to conquer the Soviet Union ultimately believing in racist views about Slavic peoples. The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. This Nazi invasion was called Operation Barbarossa. Then, Stalin woke up to Hitler’s evil designs and he acted. Hitler won initial battles in Russia, but the Soviet Union came back to drive out the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad during February of 1943. 1943. 1943 also witnessed the massive Battle of Kursk, involving 3 million soldiers and thousands of tanks. Soviet troops reached Germany by the end of 1944. During the battle of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Total capitulation of the Nazi regime came just after midnight on May 9, Moscow time. Today, we have Vladimir Putin who is an imperfect, authoritarian leader with connections to the capitalist oligarchs. He is a strident nationalist. Ironically, the USA doesn’t care. They want Russia to be pacified by any means necessary. The US backed the Ukrainian coup in February of 2014. NATO has militarized the region. The Kiev regime has committed huge errors. Crimea has the right to assert its self-determination. So, we still want fascism defeated in our time.




To understand the Vietnam War in a higher level, then we have to understand about Cambodia. The leader Sihanouk of Cambodia was a neutral person and his nation was mostly filled with Buddhists. Yet John Foster Dulles and others in the CIA were filled up with such anti-Communist paranoia, that they wanted Cambodia to be adamantly anti-Communist as early as the 1950’s. Cambodia became independent from France and Sihanouk was elected Prime Minister (after he abdicated his throne, so that he can go into the electoral process). Sihanouk rebuffed the Dulles brothers, so the Western establishment used many actions to try to destabilize Cambodia economically, so a puppet regime can replace Sihanouk. Mr. Norodom Sihanouk also refused to be part of the SEATO military alliance (as documented in Sihanouk’s own memoirs entitled, “My War with the CIA”). The West funded Cambodian factions hostile to Sihanouk like Khmer Serei and Khmer Krom. William Blum wrote about a conspiracy to topple Sihanouk via a powerful Cambodian general named Dap Chhuon at the end of the Eisenhower administration. By February of 1959, many of the conspirators were caught or fled. Even when Kennedy was President, the CIA continued its covert operations against Cambodia. Sihanouk confronted JFK about the matter and Kennedy tried to assure him that the U.S. government was not involved. To this Sihanouk wrote, "I considered President Kennedy to be an honorable man but, in that case, who really represented the American government?" Today, we know that the CIA conducted covert actions even without the President’s consent during the Kennedy years. After Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ’s administration was filled with people (like Robert McNamara, Walt Rostow, and the Bundy brothers) who created more U.S. military in the Vietnam War. Henry Kissinger (who was fired by President Kennedy for advocating the use of limited nuclear weapons during the Berlin crisis), especially wanted to end Sihanouk’s neutral nation. The Establishment loved Kissinger, so they propped him up. By 1969, America attacked Cambodia (with the support of Nixon and Kissinger) and Prince Sihanouk was removed from power on March 18, 1970. General Lon Nol and Sirik Matak took over Cambodia. They supported the United States and the interests of the Pentagon. With Sihanouk removed from power, civil war came about in Cambodia. General Lon Nol’s troops fought the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese (who faced against the Khmer Serei and Khmer Krom). The Khmer forces fought against the energized Cambodian communist movement (or the Khmer Rouge who was led by the evil and infamous Pol Pot. Pol Pot was influenced by Stalinism not by progressive Communism). On April 30, 1970, American troops invaded Cambodia to assist General Lon Nol and to fight the Communists. Blum wrote that the invasion was met with a huge protest from the peace movement in the United States, and four members of Kissinger's NSC, including the above-mentioned Roger Morris, resigned in protest. Pol Pot’s genocide came in the 1970‘s which killed over 1 million lives. Ironically, it would be the Vietnamese who would intervene in 1978 and stop Pol Pot’s genocide against Cambodian human beings. What’s wild is that the U.S. backed the murderous Pol Pot regime when Vietnam invaded Cambodia (after the Khmer Rouge attacked and killed ethnic Vietnamese people on the Cambodia, Vietnam border). Blum recounts the fact that during the Vietnam War, China sold several thousand tons of steel to the US military in South Vietnam to help in the building of Air Force and Army bases. White House envoy Alexander Haig met with Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai in January of 1972, and Haig later wrote of his impressions of the meeting, “…Though he never stated the case in so many words, I reported to President Nixon that the import of what Zhou said to me was: 'don't lose in Vietnam; don't withdraw from Southeast Asia…” So, the evil, unjust Vietnam War was a war filled with surprises.





Freedom loving people will always reject tyranny and subscribe to liberation. Many of the major points about the truth going on in the Middle East are mentioned in this interview. Lia and others have made great points about how Israel tries to preach about democracy and human rights, but they don’t live it (even among their own citizens. We know that they don’t practice democracy towards Palestinians whether they live in Israel or in Occupied Territories). It is a shame that a select group of the Ashkenazi oligarchy (not all Jewish people worldwide) continues to execute apartheid policies in Israel. People in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv including throughout Israel live under a racist, ethnocracy. Ethiopian Jewish people in Israel are fed up with police violence and blatant discrimination, so they protested a lot during this year. Although, the Ethiopians Jewish residents in Israel must not seek a privileged position in Israel. They have to condemn Israeli occupation and advocate for Palestinian liberation too. They or the Ethiopian Jewish human beings cannot participate in the Israeli military, which has been used to oppress others. There can be no hypocrisy involving freedom. The oppression against black African migrants in Israel shows the world about the hypocrisy found in the Israeli government. The black African migrants deserve dignity and respect. This oppression against the African migrants is similar to the hypocrisy of the American government which claims to uphold the principles of democracy, but they don't live out those principles (via laws that harm our civil liberties and to the epidemic of police brutality harming people nationwide). There is no question that things must change. We are in solidarity with the oppressed whether they are the Palestinians, the Ethiopian people in Israel (who want freedom and reject Palestinian oppression. The Ethiopian Israelis have suffered forced sterilization, which is outright crime against humanity), and the African migrants. Israel is allied with America and Saudi Arabia in not only promoting the wicked war on terror, but they want a pro-Western puppet regime to exist in Yemen (they also want puppet regimes to be established throughout the Middle East). We will not agree with apartheid, oppression, discrimination, or economic deprivation. We want freedom for all. We want economic inequality to be combated and we want imperial policies to be ended. Also, I do send great Kudos and congratulations to Sister Jessica Desvarieux for asking excellent questions and showing another great interview like usual. The Real News once again shines a light on issues that the mainstream media is afraid to cover. I haven’t heard MSNBC, FOX, or CNN discuss about this issue in public on TV.


There is a paradox. We have a huge amount of black political leaders in Baltimore, yet decades later, we face the same conditions in Baltimore and throughout America. So, the conclusion is that we need progressive, strong black political power in order for us to  be free, but black people in the political establishment is never a guarantee that Black America will be truly liberated. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the 50th anniversary of the Watts Rebellion, we have to reflect. Not only that, but we have to institute creative, strong strategies that can help humanity in Baltimore and all over the globe. The recent uprising in Baltimore was a reflection of pain and hurt. People are tired of poverty, economic inequality, and police brutality. We have the first African American President today. There are 43 Black members of the U.S. House and two black Senators. These are the highest number of members of U.S. Congress throughout American history. Also, Loretta Lynch is the first Black woman to be appointed Attorney General of the United States. The Mayor in Baltimore is a Black woman whose name is Sister Stephanie Rawling-Blake and the Police Commissioners is a Brother named Anthony Batts. Baltimore’s City Council has 15 members of whom 8 are African Americans (while Ferguson once had a lack of black political power and representation). So, we live in historic times along with historic challenges. Regardless of the racial composition of cities or towns, we as a community still face racial discrimination and economic inequality. Many black political leaders of the establishment have failed to address these issues. In fact, some members of the black political elite class make it their mission to demonize the black poor and lecture about “personal responsibility” instead of fighting the system of white supremacy. Some of them even are funded by the big multinational corporations who fund privatization projects (in urban areas) at the expense of the suffering of the masses of black people.  Rawlings-Blake said of violence in the city, "Too many of us in the black community have become complacent about black-on-black crime...While many of us are willing to march and protest and become active in the face of police misconduct, many of us turn a blind eye when it's us killing us." It is common for some white reactionaries (and even some black people) to blame the problems of society on African Americans, but there are black organizations that condemn crime no matter who does it. Also, we know that we must address socioeconomic issues if we want further community development. The police institution is the armed enforces of the oppressive, capitalistic power structure (which executes racism and economic exploitation). President Barack Obama and Mayor Rawlings-Blake even called the youth who rebelled “thugs” which inappropriate. To her credit, Baltimore’s Mayor apologized for her statement. We know that the crisis in Baltimore can about because of decades of neglect, poverty, unemployment, deindustrialization, and police violence. We don’t need the black youth to be vilified. We don’t need austerity. Even some Democrats refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund social programs to help the poor and working class. The real thugs are the predatory corporate elites who created the social misery in the ghetto and in other communities in the first place. The real thugs are crooked cops who oppress people of every color in American society. We don’t need to resurrect tired, old narratives that indict Black families and black culture for racial inequality. Over one hundred people that had been arrested during were released with no charges, prompting deputy public defender Natalie Finegar to tell the Los Angeles Times, “It looks like a lot of folks were just flat-out illegally detained, from our perspective.” We need to revolutionary change where people have living wages, we need our civil liberties and human rights strengthened, we need an end to mass incarceration, and we need economic justice. We want mass organization for empowerment and we want cops who commit evil to be punished (and held accountable for their actions). We will fight oppression. We want black people to have freedom and liberation. This is not a moment, but this is a movement.

By Timothy