Friday, June 12, 2015

Friday News in Mid June 2015


The Democratic race is starting up as well. The Republican race has over a dozen candidates running for President. There has been a lot of new about the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist, but he supported the war on Afghanistan and supported NSA domestic spying. Many people view Sanders as a person who wants to drive more populist voters into the Democratic Party. The Barack Obama Presidency is about to end. We know about the promises of “hope and change,” but we live in a society where Wall Street has grown its power and the American political system on the mainstream level is controlled by select oligarchs. Even Princeton University has found that we live in an oligarchy not a democracy. We have high levels of economic inequality. We see the Republicans debating who can be the most reactionary candidates. Citizens United benefited the Koch Brothers greatly. A bourgeois “democracy” is not revolutionary. Bernie Sanders talks about desiring a political revolution in America involving voting for the Democratic Party. For her part, Hillary Clinton tweeted: “I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back. I welcome him to the race.” Sanders will not run a third party campaign if he loses the Democratic Party campaign. Asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “But if you lose in this nomination fight, will you support the Democratic nominee?” Sanders replied, “Yes. I have in the past as well.” Stephanopoulos: “Not going to run as an independent?” Sanders: “Absolutely not. I’ve been very clear about that.” Bernie Sanders declined to vote for the first Gulf War in 1991, but he supported the evil, murderous UN sanctions against Iraq. Those sanctions according to the British medical journal Lancet killed up to 1 million people including over 500,000 children. He voted for the U.S. intervention of Somalia in 1993 and Clinton’s war on Yugoslavia in 1999. Sanders wants the Saudis to fight ISIS and he backed Israel’s murderous invasion of Gaza. Sanders have promoted reactionary measures against China. Sanders voted against the original USA Patriot Act legislation, but he agrees with the USA Freedom Act. At the end of the day, there must political independence of the working class and the poor. Therefore, we must believe in political independence beyond the two capitalist parties of the Republicans and the Democrats.



The police being out of control in America is an understatement. Cops in America kill more people than any other industrialized nation on Earth. American cops have killed more than 500 human beings in America this year and it isn't even July yet. We know about crooked cops. It is a shame that the President can't even name white supremacy, white racism, police terrorism in public via his speeches. Even Dr. King condemned white supremacy in public by name overtly during his 1965 Selma speech. Regardless of how people feel about President Barack Obama, to white racists, he is a (we know the word). I don't believe in calling the President out of his name, but I do disagree with him on many issues (as it pertains to foreign policy which is similar to Bush's foreign policy and his neoliberalism). Therefore, we have to express political independence and realize that we can't worship the 2 party system. At the end of the day, we are fighting for black liberation and we will never quit in that fight. Since Hollywood was established, it has been filled with racism and stereotypes. Many characters have been whitewashed as the article documents. Another example is that some of the old Westerns portrayed Native Americans in the most negative way (and many of the Native Americans in those pictures were portrayed by Caucasian actors or actresses). We know amazing people of color who can act very magnificently. So, we should never give up. People have the right to protest if they want to. Likewise, we should promote our own images as well via independent circles. Our history and our legacy have been filled with overcoming the odds and showing excellence. We have power and we can execute our power to support movies that show the black experience in a great light.


Any human being that wants to use deception in this fashion has issues. Now, Rachel is not worse than people like Klan members or Neo-Nazis. Yet, any revolutionary wants to use integrity in how they go about their lives. Honesty and integrity are important concepts. She may speak on racial justice matters, but what is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. Therefore, this story should educate us about the importance of loving our blackness and it is lesson for us to see that even some white people want to be black literally. We know that Black is Beautiful. I know that I have gorgeous black melanin and I have great creativity as a black person. I won’t castigate her in an inappropriate way. There is certainly more to this story than what is shown. I have no hatred of her and I have no ill will towards her. Although, I do disagree with her deceptive activities. For someone to lie about the identity of his or her own parents is truly wrong. What is most important is about us getting our communities improved, helping our neighbors, and making real social change (for our black people here in the States and abroad. I believe in uniting with people of black African descent globally). The reality of white privilege can be so slick that some folks view white as black and black as white (which is totally ludicrous). Lying on job applications in this matter can negatively affect black people (who are qualified) from having jobs in the NAACP too. We, as black people, must never get down with the tactic of deception in order for us to be free. She is wrong to promote a persona or an illusion of being a black woman when we know that black women have suffered a whole worse than her. Black women have been degraded, scapegoated, and harmed by many people for a very long time in America alone. Therefore, no one like Rachel should trivialize the personhood of black women by this action. If Rachel was honest from jump street, she would have received much less outrage. Tons of black women have trouble in showing their stories in public too. I do believe some white folks feel so much guilt about the evil done by their ancestors (and many contemporary whites) that they want to be called black as a way for them to extinguish that psychological guilt. Yet, that causes more confusion. There shouldn't be confusion. We face the system of white supremacy. We want that system to end, so a system of justice can exist.

Terrorists will always make ignorant, perverted excuses for their terrorism. I will not sugarcoat my language when describing crooked police officers. They are what they are. This reality deals with many complex factors. Reactionaries always view concepts in very simplistic terms when the reality is that problems sometimes have diverse origins. The situation in Baltimore has been building for decades. The massive deindustrialization of the 1970’s, austerity, gentrification, the poverty (which is at Great Depression levels in many poorer neighborhoods), and the issue of policing must be comprehended. The increase of homicides in Baltimore is a tragedy and we want those numbers to go down radically. The lying cops say that only aggressive policing can work when true police work is not viewing the community as an occupied territory. That’s a problem. Some cops view people in communities as enemies and as adversaries instead of human beings.
Many cops have shot and killed innocent people and go off. There have been no radical legal changes in how Baltimore officers conduct their actions. LEOBR is still here. The cops there, who voluntarily choose to reduce arrests, enact a form of retaliation against the indictment of some cops (who dealt with the arrest of Freddie Gray). There is no excuse for some to execute a homicide of an innocent human being. The War on Drugs is not a solution. If some cops feel that they can only use excessive force to resolve conflicts or to handle arrests, then those cops are straight up sick. The growth of the prison industrial complex, which has ruined many black families and caused dislocations, is not a solution. So, we have to both find ways to decrease the homicide rates (as innocent human life must not be murdered) and we have to allow real accountability to exist for Baltimore cops who abuse their authority.

Ending emails depends on the situation. If someone is emailing a friend or a relative about something that is non-job related, then I believe that someone can be looser with the etiquette. In terms of emailing someone who works with you from a job setting or someone emailing a person in any professional setting, then email communication definitely should be more conservative and filled with great etiquette. Those types of emails should be taken very seriously in terms of occupational situations. It is better to be safe, sincere, and professional involving those situations. I don’t believe that people should act fake in displaying their communication, but certain emails should outline great professionalism if it deals with something relating to jobs or business. Like others have said here, we should be careful in how we display our social media accounts. Practice is certainly good. As time goes onward, I do have a greater appreciation for editing. Verbal communication and communication via writing words are very important as you have outlined. The flow of the words being great can magnify the essence of writing. That is why I advocate everyone to edit their work when they write. I don't care if you have to edit your work 10 or 20 times. It is better to edit and have the most crisp, eloquent words, then to mess it up. We need technology, but not at the expense of our social, intellectual development.


The minimum wage increase in many locations will adjust based on the consumer price index and inflation. Also, the implementation of the minimum wage will exist in incremental stages. Tech jobs will increase, but with proper economic growth, the wages can sustain themselves (along with proper economic strategies). The vast majority of the American people believe in an increase of the national minimum wage as validated by poll after poll. The problem is not just about inflation. It is about an economic system that has permitted big corporations like Wall Street banks the power to extract wealth via bailouts, subsidies, and tax breaks while leaving Main Street left in the cold. We agree that education is very important. Poor communities need investments. There are plenty of flight attendants, airport workers, and other workers who are fighting for a higher minimum wage not just fast food workers (who consist of adults also). People have every God given right to protest for 15 dollars an hour, because the current national minimum wage is a disgrace. A family of 4 or 5 will suffer massive poverty living on $7.25 an hour. It is a disgrace where grown men and grown women have to be paid starvation wages to survive in this nation. That is why people protested in the streets and LA won a key victory in that movement. Living wages have been supported by people from across the political spectrum. Economic justice is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many other Brothers & Sisters died for. The point is that the President follows an imperfect neoliberal policy and people want the President to be more progressive & courageous. The Congress not just the President deserves blame for a lot of the problems we face.



By Timothy

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