Monday, June 15, 2015

News of the world and Life in General.

There is the continued economic conflict in Greece. Greece could experience bankruptcy. The European Union is strident in putting in place even more austerity measures in Greece, which will further indebt the nation. The EU wants Greece to repay its debts and want more cuts to pensions as a precondition for new loans. Syriza is a powerful political party in Greece. Syriza delayed in their response. So, the EU threatened to cut off credit to Greece and push its state and financial system into bankruptcy. Greece is being forced to repay 300 million euros. This could make Greece to reintroduce its own national currency to stop a collapse of its banks and even set into motion the dissolution of the euro currency and the EU itself. Berlin is taking about a take it or leave it approach. Officials from the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank walked out of talks with Greek officials.  Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister and current European Council president, said, “We need decisions, not negotiations, now.” The financial oligarchs are forgiving with the debt as it relates to the Kiev regime of Ukraine, but they are stricter with Greece. We know that the Kiev reactionary regime is backed by NATO, who is conducting a massive military buildup across Europe (and some extremists have threatened all-out war with Russia). Ukraine has slashed jobs and utility subsidies. They have banned the public mention of the October Revolution and communism, which is against the freedom of speech. The Syriza Party came about in response to the opposition of the six years of EU austerity policies in Greece. The European banks want their way. We see as history proves that progress can only come by the unity of the working class plus the poor internationally as a way to promote revolutionary change against capitalist exploitation. There is a global backlash against austerity in Germany, Britain, France, across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, etc. Many European nations refuse to veto the EU sanctions against Russia. Visiting Berlin Thursday, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis made clear his government’s commitment to even further concessions to the European banks. He called for “surgery” to slash Greek pensions, saying, “We need to find ways of eliminating early retirements, of merging pension funds, of reducing their operating costs, of moving from an unsustainable to a sustainable system, rationally and gradually.” We don’t need centrism. We want revolutionary change.


The Pentagon wants a network of new U.S. military bases in Iraq. These bases will be found in strategic areas of Iraq. General Martin Dempsey or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said of these plans to reporters. These new U.S. garrisons will house further deployments of hundreds of more U.S. troops. This will be beyond the deployment of an additional 450 U.S. forces announced by the Obama administration on Wednesdays. The Pentagon aims to establish a chain of “lily pads, if you will, that allow us to continue to encourage the Iraqi security forces forward,” Dempsey said. US military planners are already looking at possible locations for bases in central Iraq, he added. “We’re looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites necessary,” Dempsey said while speaking to reporters during a visit to Europe this week. The U.S. wants to use troops as “advisors” to help train Iraqi forces, so that they can defeat ISIS forces in Iraq. ISIS is also found in Syria. We have about 3,100 U.S. troops in Iraq now. This could increase to almost 3,600 as a result of the new deployment. State Department spokesman Admiral John Kirby said that this war could last for at least 3-5 more years. These new U.S. garrisons are modeled on a major joint U.S./Iraq training. The operational facilities are to be established at Tadaddum in Iraq’s western Anbar province. The White House revealed this. This new U.S. base will be part of a staging area to try to take the city of Ramadi or the capital of Anbar province. The 450 troops will train Iraqi forces at Taqaddum. These Iraqi troops will march to Ramadi and will have U.S. air support. The neo-con extremists view this as not far enough. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) demanded that US air forces escalate their onslaught against targets in Iraq and Syria, regardless of the mass slaughter of civilians that he admits will result. “The US cannot make avoiding all civilian casualties a strategic objective,” Cordesman said in testimony to Congress last week. The US is turning to the Sunni tribes in Anbar province in order to pressure the Shiite elite, now in control of the central government, which has close ties to Iran. There is an expansion of U.S. military involvement in Iraq. The plans of the White House and the Pentagon have promoted these deployments without any pretense of democratic process or debate in the U.S. Congress. ISIS came about as a result of U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Syria. The Western military intervention has caused about 4,400 air strikes in Iraq and Syria.  The U.S. wants more Sunni support since the Iraqi government is mostly Shia (and ISIS has strong Sunni support too). This ethnic manipulation by Western imperialists has caused more chaos in Iraq. Ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, we witness even more complex problems.

There has been massive migrant immigration to Europe. They come for many reasons. Some come to escape dictatorial regimes. Some have escaped because of ISIS terrorism or terrorism from other extremist groups. These refugees are from Africa, Asia, India, etc. The evil US/NATO military intervention in Libya back in 2011 has also increased the number of migrants traveling into Europe too. Some of these migrants have been killed in trying to survive. The problem is that many migrants readily have not been met with open arms when they arrive into other countries. Some countries greet them with racism, xenophobia, and paranoia. Some migrants have experienced violence in Europe and other places because of their nationality, which is evil. Massive migrants are found in the Mediterranean Sea. There have been 1,724 people who died in the Mediterranean Sea when they have used vessels to try to go to southern Europe from Libya. Some refugees are not just from African nations. Some came from Syria and even from Bangladesh. There has been a vessel capsizing which caused about 850 people to die while only 28 survived on April 18, 2015. This situation is a humanitarian crisis. After the Libyan President Gaddafi died (by NATO-backed jihadists. It wasn't just some Republicans who supported the evil NATO bombing of Libya. Many Democrats supported this imperialist aggression too under the guise of "humanitarianism"), chaos and civil war has plagued Libya. Racist jihadists have killed black Libyans and African migrants. Presumptive democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton infamously said of Libyan president Gaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.” Libya had massive resources and jobs for migrants. Now, Libya can’t totally sell or extract its own oil resources. Syria with its civil war has traveled so much into Lebanon and Jordan, that they are preventing them from entering. Some Syrians fly to Sudan and then smuggled into Europe via Libya. American culpability in this tragedy has been ignored by the mainstream media (just like back in the 1980’s, U.S. responsibility for the coups, interventions, and drug policies in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala has been ignored). The migrants should have their human rights respected.



During the 1970’s in New York City, some politicians capitulated to the corporate establishment. Before, many politicians worked with various social movements and the public sector unions (like the UFT and AFSCME), who grown in size and political influence during the sixties. Now, the reactionary backlash came about in a higher level. New York’s manufacturing base declined by the 1970’s. In 1947, New York City had 1,073,000 manufacturing jobs, which is huge. As late as 1965, New York City still employed 865,000 manufacturing jobs. The radically decrease of manufacturing jobs and budgetary issues caused a loss of tax revenue. Loss of tax revenue without just compensation or alternatives will increase the risk of financial crisis. Then, you have the 1971 end of the U.S. dollar off the gold reserve standard and the oil crisis of 1973. This caused economic problems worldwide. You had low tax extraction on NYC real estate when the market value of Manhattan commercial buildings south of 59th street were worth in the billions in the 1970’s alone. NYC’s finances were run by various agencies (with influence from the city and state political leadership including the NY’s business elite). CUNY was shut down and reopened on condition that students pay tuition. Severe cuts in public housing, hospitals, schools, and transit systems cause the decay of much of the infrastructure in NYC during the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s. Ex-mayor Ed Koch sometimes appealed to the racist elements in NYC as a means for him to gain political power. Koch promoted tax exemptions for the wealthy and homelessness increased under his watch. There was bankruptcy of New York City on mid-April 1975 (during the time of Mayor Beame). The American financial banker Felix Rohatyn and others dealt with handling the financial crisis in NYC. When the NYC school bus drivers went on strike in early 1979 (and these workers were fighting for their economic rights which they had a right to do), Koch denounced them as “goons” and “bastards.” The next year, when New York’s powerful 35,000-strong subway and bus workforce defied the anti-strike Taylor Law in an eight-day walkout, Koch led a crowd across the Brooklyn Bridge, hysterically whipping up sections of the middle class. Koch, as Mayor, saw the drug crisis of the 1970's including the 1980’s with the advent of the crack epidemic. We know how the War on Drugs crippled many people. That is why people today (from across the political spectrum) are opposing the War on Drugs and desire solutions.

The video shows the truth about what happened in McKinney, TX. To see kids being assaulted, cursed at and brutalized by the police should make anyone angry at injustice. We have the right to protect our community from police terrorists. It is a total disgrace that some in social media are trying to blame and scapegoat the victims instead of the cops who assaulted innocent people and some cops stood there and did nothing to reprimand Eric Casebolt. We must not water down the truth. We have to teach the truth about the evil system of racism/white supremacy and the nefarious instruments of oppression. The two young males standing up for the teenage girl ought to be commended for their courage. One of the teenage males had an attorney to document how he slipped on the grass and he didn't intentionally lunged at the officer at all. Eric Casebolt was never assaulted by anyone, yet he pulled his gun on unarmed black youth. Crooked cops don't care if cameras are there or not. These cops will harm people all over America. Some cops tried to immediately harass black youth who did nothing wrong, which shows how micro aggressions are serious problems in American society. What the police officer did was wrong. He assaulted a non-threatening black woman, he cursed out kids, and he pulled out a gun on unarmed black males (I’m glad that she showed information as it pertains to the video). The officer disregarded the words of black kids who called him “Sir” too. Respect is a two way street. Many of the black teens respected the officer, but the officer didn’t respect the kids in the pool party area. The 2 white women assaulting a black female should be ashamed of themselves. Also, some of the whites who called black people slurs and made other disrespectful comments ought to feel shame too. The cop has guilt and that is why he acted in an irrational fashion. Later, he issued a token apology and he resigned. Cops in America as of now have killed over 500 people in 2015 alone. Cops kill more people in America than any other nation in the industrialized world. We know that Malcolm X condemned police brutality and advocated self-defense not just being courteous to people. The real issue is that we have a problem of police terrorism in America and we must find ways to end this problem. It is common for the white racists to slander the witnesses and the victims of police terrorism in McKinney, TX. Just because a grown, beautiful black woman wears a bikini (as shown in a Facebook page), doesn’t mean that she’s a criminal. The reality is that there is a difference between respect and submission to evil. We should treat our neighbor as ourselves and be strong. We shouldn't be nihilistic, but we should always stand up for our human rights. Some folks confuse standing up for human rights with outright nihilism, which isn’t the case at all. If someone is being questioned by the police, that person has the right to ask questions. Cops are not gods and they should be treated as fallible people (since we pay their salaries with our tax dollars). Cops should serve us not vice versa. We want justice.


By Timothy

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