Pro-God, Pro-Human Life, anti-New World Order, Anti-Nefarious Secret Societies, Pro-Civil Liberties, anti-Torture, anti-National ID Card, Pro-Family, Anti-Neo Conservativism, Pro-Net Neutrality, Pro-Home Schooling, Anti-Voting Fraud, Pro-Good Israelis & Pro-Good Palestinians, Anti-Human Trafficking, Pro-Health Freedom, Anti-Codex Alimentarius, Pro-Action, Anti-Bigotry, Pro-9/11 Justice, Anti-Genocide, and Pro-Gun Control. My name is Timothy and I'm from the state of Virginia.
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Saturday, October 31, 2015
Friday, October 30, 2015
The Third Republican Debate on CNBC
The third Republican debate was filled with GOP candidates talking about “big government.” They are hypocrites in that regard since they want to complain about big government, but they support the military industrial complex as “big government” or the funding of big corporate interests. The debate took place in Boulder, Colorado and it was sponsored by CNBC (or the business channel with ties to NBC). Many GOP candidates and the RNC wanted soft ball questions in debates, which is wrong. Any candidate should receive hard hitting, complex, and tough questions. Receiving tough questions builds intelligence, strength, and human leadership. The whole debate revolved mostly about economic issues. Marco Rubio receives money from casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Rand Paul and Chris Christie believe in the same trickled down economics that contributed to the recession in the first place. The debate was about the candidates showing one liners against rivals and the candidates complaining about the media. The panel of moderators from CNBC were intimidated and used as scapegoats during the two hour televised spectacle. The candidates refused to talk about how class issues and the economy are linked. They all expressed almost identical right wing viewpoints. They blamed big government for stagnant wages, poverty, and social devastation (instead of the real cause which is the profit system. This profit system has increased wealth and the income of the super wealthy for the past 3 decades which has been monopolized by a tiny financial elite). The GOP believes that if big government is cut down radically, then the economy can grow in America. Dr. Ben Carson and Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush including others echoed those sentiments. Jeb Bush said that the 1.2 trillion debt of college loans was created by the federal government when it came by private and state colleges (and decades of low wages). Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, whose state is bankrupt and has never recovered from the combined blows of Hurricane Katrina and the oil price collapse: “I’m the only one that’s reduced the size of government. Let’s shrink the government economy. Let’s grow the American economy.” Senator Ted Cruz made the point that big government benefits the wealthy and the lobbyists (which is a half truth since the government is controlled by the oligarchy and it has promoted austerity policies against the poor and middle class) when Wall Street oligarchy have controlled many polices of Congress to benefit the few. There is an alliance between the capitalist state and big business. The Republican campaigns are financed by big business. The government is not mostly controlled by the people, but by the 1 percent. One wealthy investor hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer funds Cruz. Cruz is known to suck up to corporate interests. Carly Fiorina claimed that big government favors the wealthy and crushes the powerless when she claims that the federal government setting standards for setting minimum wages is not constitutional, when there are legal parameters to set up minimum wage and Social Security. Fiorina’s presentation was particularly bizarre since her claim to credibility as a candidate consists in her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, one of the 50 largest corporations in America, and a huge government contractor (particularly of the National Security Agency) making her the personification of the alliance of big business and “big government” which she was stridently condemning. It is notable that none of them condemns or proposes to shrink the single largest part of the federal government, the gigantic military-intelligence apparatus that constitutes the biggest threat both to the democratic rights of the American people and the physical survival of the human race. They oppose big government as it relates to the government providing the general welfare of the people (like people who enforce health, safety, and pollution regulation, Social Security, Medicare, etc.), but they support big government in terms of supporting the growth of the military industrial complex (except or Rand Paul. Yet, even Rand Paul has a reactionary foreign policy agenda). In other words, their focus is not on the federal agencies that threaten the democratic rights of the American people, or spy on, attack and kill the citizens of other countries, but the federal agencies that restrict in any way, however slightly, the operations of the giant corporations and banks. The GOP debate in essence was about the candidates promoting privatization of public education, undermining regulations on corporations, and attacking social programs. The mainstream media doesn't get a pass ither since it is corporate dominated and has been intimidated by the powers that be for so long.
You know what I’m going to type. I have so much to say. Here it goes. There is no liberation in us as black people being an adjunct or a puppet of the Democratic and Republican parties. Historically, both parties have exploited us and used right wing tactics in stifling black progress. Therefore, we advocate political independence. This is what Sister Garza has courageously said in public. The Democratic Party can’t liberate black people. The Republican Party can’t liberate black people. Only black people can liberate black people. If we are to be free, then we have to be about it for real. Back decades ago, old school civil rights leaders used civil disobedience, outright shut downs, and massive tactics of resistance to fight back against oppression. Now, today, courageous activists have spoken up to Hillary Clinton about these issues. The activists in Clark Atlanta University have every right to speak their minds. An imperialist (who voted for the Iraq War and talks about further escalation of military involvement in the Syrian civil war) and a corporate agent being called a “freedom fighter” is the height of absurdity and hypocrisy. How can an imperialist in a business party liberate a black soul? She can’t. The GOP filled with racist, xenophobic, and sexist candidates certainly can’t liberate black people either. The protesters have shown strength and courage to stand up for people of the African Diaspora. We need to address the criminal injustice system and we need to abolish the War on Drugs.
We are not surprised. The inferiority complexes of many whites (who supported the racist sorority) is so easy to tell. They want to disrespect black women, but some of them want to copy black peoples’ style, music, and culture. The vicious letter from the cowardly anonymous person explains the truth about how evil misoygnoir and discrimination are. The vicious letter (from a member of the Southern Methodist University) fully exposes how evil white racism is and how jealous they are of black women. From the beginning of human history, black women have been very intelligent, strong, and able to achieve great accomplishment. Throughout my life, I know (in real life) amazing black women principals, teachers, scholars, community leaders, other workers, and other heroes. Many black people are naïve to think that every white person that gives them attention is an ally. That is not the case. Black people are speaking up and our worth is superior to that white sorority’s bigotry and ignorance. This why black folks for centuries in the Americas have set up our own institutions. The opinions of unintelligent, jealous white racists don’t matter. What matters include us loving our community, helping our people, and being a blessing for the world. For long years, Rachel has used her white privilege to strip away opportunities from black people who want to go into an university. She has made a disrespectful, false claim and her actions mock black womanhood and the black experience in general. She has used deception and exploited the struggle of our people and our ancestors as an excuse for her to promote a lie. Of course, she is ashamed of being white, because her self-hatred of her own ethnic identity is a sign of the wonder and glory of our blackness. Our black identity is so beautiful that some want to intimate it, but they can never duplicate it. Black is Beautiful and no one can strip away our glorious, strong swag. We, as black people, are here to stay.
First, I am glad that more people are overtly opposing this form of discrimination inside of a club in the UK. Any policy of unwarranted discrimination that is racist should be called out. The freedom movements in the UK and in America continue today. Back decades ago, Afro-British freedom fighters Claudia Jones, Darcus Howe, Olive Morris, and Paul Stephenson stood up against discrimination. Today, we are still fighting the same fight. I commend those who told their stories since we need more awareness. The Bambu club is trying to insult people's intelligence since tons of people have given testimony to its racist actions. We will stand up by using our resources to support those who support us and never ally or financially support those who harm us or discriminates against us. The movement for racial justice is diverse. The nonviolent marchers and the Black Panthers wanted the same goal (which is freedom, justice, and equality). They may have disagreed on tactics, but they wanted the same end result, which is the total liberation of black people. Some people forget that the FBI and local police agencies killed dozens of Black Panther Party members in cold blood. Also, the FBI used COINTELPRO against the BPP with the support of Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. The BPP existed after the great African American migration and in response to oppressive economic and social conditions of the ghettos of the Midwest, the North, and the West Coast. Also, it existed in response to police brutality especially. So, the Black Panthers have been slandered as the "bad guys" by reactionaries for decades. The Black Panthers helped feed children breakfast, they established health care clinics, they helped the elderly, and they did other positive actions in the black community. Today, many people are getting the truth on such matters.
Standing up for the black youth is a total prerequisite in our lives. No black teenager should be brutally thrown around and the young Sister has to wear a cast around her body as a product of the actions of an evil now ex-cop. The cop being fired is welcomed news. Also, the fight isn’t over yet. He must experience a trial, a conviction, and he must go into prison. The criminal justice system has been a disgrace for a long time and revolutionary change is totally needed to make sure that not only are black people treated fairly, but that our human rights must be respected. Black leaders from Ella Baker to Malcolm X spoke eloquently about fighting for human rights. In this generation, we have water being cut off in Detroit and Baltimore (especially against the poor). We have many Brothers and Sisters being unfairly suspended and we have the epidemic of police terrorism in the rural, suburban, and urban communities of America. Therefore, there has to be real accountability here.
Any cop with a history of abusing people should never be involved in any function of any school period. The teacher is obviously a coward and exploited the situation of the Sister as a means for him to follow the status quo. The school should be scrutinized of its policies and the teacher must face accountability as well. We know what the truth is. The young Sister in foster care is a serious situation. That is why we are in solidarity with her. We are in solidarity always with the oppressed. We love the essence of Blackness and we will defend our people. Justice is meant for all and we mean it. We don’t want students to have a distressing, paranoiac mentality where they fear the police instead of focusing on strengthening their education. We don’t want children to be harmed physically so bad that they need casts on their bodies. Enough is enough. In this generation, we will stand up faithfully for truth and justice.
By Timothy
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Issues on Justice
No one should be naive about what has happened. A vicious cop brutalized a Sister. The cop is fired, but this is not the end. There is a serious problem of police terrorism in our communities. He should be fired. For this barbarian to be placed in a school after he has been experiencing complaints for violence and excessive force is a tragedy. Justice is a process. I am glad that he is fired, but that isn’t all that should be done. There should be an investigation of the school to witness its protocol and other aspects of its policies as it relates to police officers in its school. Fields should be arrested for many crimes, sent to a trial, convicted, and sent to prison. Fields is a known menace and threat to society. He deserves to be truly held accountable for his evil actions. The teacher in the classroom acted as a coward and he didn’t even aggressively tell the officer that the cop is using over the top actions. When our black children are under attack, then we won’t be silent. Schools should be locations where children are never afraid of cops and where students are treated as human beings learning a myriad of information not as criminals. A young black teenage has suffered physical and emotional pain. Her family is hurting. Therefore, we express solidarity with the young Sister and her family. History proves that complying with an oppressive system doesn't work. A barbarian killed a 7 year old girl and recently, another barbarian assaulted a young black teenager. The police officer should have never been in the classroom in the first place (when similar situations would merit much of a more different response) . The fragrant assault of black youth is disgusting. Our heroes from members from SNCC to the Black Panthers taught us a long time ago that playing "nice" with brutes will not cause liberation. That is why we believe in resistance against evil. I commend the Sister who recorded the footage since she showed more heart and strength than the cop and the teacher combined.
Learning is a lifelong process. The quiz is wrong to mark incorrect for a correct answer. Back then, education was heavily involved in establishing critical thinking beyond random memorization. Random memorization is not real learning since a person is just regurgitating what someone else is feeding you in an indoctrinated fashion. Real learning is analyzing information, making connections, improving creativity, and applying what we know in real life situations too. Therefore, many teachers are tired of teaching to a standardized test and having a more regimented way of teaching instead of a advancing a more creative way of learning. Answers to multiplication problems, pre-calculus, and calculus involved a litany of strategies. The answer to the multiplication problem can be in many different designations. We do know that in numerous school system, students take dozens of standardized tests before they graduate high school. This should change. That is why hundreds of thousands of students and teachers have protested excessive, standardized testing in Los Angeles, in Seattle, in Brooklyn, and in other places of America. Certainly, we want not only true learning, but we have to reject the aims of the status quo. In the final analysis, we have to teach children that there are many different ways to derive one answer.
The Most High made us. We are made in a wonderful fashion. Our beautiful melanin is glorious. Our hair is beautifully design and our natural rhythm is inspirational too. Acknowledging our hair and our blackness has nothing to do with hating others. It is about having a love for our identity and never being ashamed of what we are. This great truth about Black being Beautiful should be taught to all black children from a very early age. We want black youth in the future to not go through what our ancestors experienced. We want them to see a better world than the present, so that they can express and fulfill their destinies intrepidly. Consciousness is always important to love and cultivate. One great thing about you is that you always make it a point to confront bigotry while loving Black Love at the same time. You inspire me. My color is my blessing. Africans have every right to tell their own stories. Also, it is a fact that Africans and African Americans have collaborated in pan-African efforts for decades. There were many Pan-African conferences throughout the 20th century. Many Africans have expressed solidarity with the African American struggle for human rights. Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah supported black Americans. I am glad that Mo Abudu wants to be her own woman. Likewise, Africa is a diverse continent and the negative stereotypes about Africa must be repudiated. Mo did a great job in the interview to dispel many of the myths and stereotypes about Africa. There are issues in Africa, but Africa has a lot of strong people who want to do better and have the same struggles and joy as any other people have in the places of the world. She’s right to want to empower women and that African women stories are very important to show. That is why African media to show a balanced image of Africa is very important. Also, Africa deserves more voices, the fight against poverty, and Africans should tell their own views without filter or obfuscation.
Sister Niya Kenny has shown more heart and strength plus courage than the officer and the teacher put together. What she did was she stood up for a fellow classmate who was a victim of assault by a cruel, evil, and barbaric cop. Niya stood up for what is right. What is right is that the officer has no business mistreating a child at all. It is a serious problem where many with a badge try to intimidate others. Yet, we know that our people are a strong people. We don’t back down. We didn’t back down during the Maafa and slavery (as hundreds of slave revolts existed from the 1400’s to the 1800’s) and our voices are here to stay. The school and the officer should be sued. The teacher is a representation of a coward and not a real man. We want real solutions and it’s a total travesty that Niya will have this on her record. Niya is a hero and her mother is a strong black woman. When we see evil, we won’t cower. We will fight it directly and do what is right. We are in solidarity with Niya and the other Sister who was the victim of excessive force and abuse from the officer. We should never take this and we want justice. Chris Christie's distortions about what the BLM is all about is truly abysmal. Crooked cops are antithetical to the principles of democracy and an equitable, egalitarian society. Christie is well known for cutting pensions, for harming the economic power of New Jersey, and for his offensive statements (he even called a grown black man a boy). He barely escaped the building scandal in NJ and he has shaken hands with the President Barack Obama in the midst of the Hurricane Sandy disaster. Police brutality is a serious problem and no one rational wants to express glee over cops being murdered. We want justice for the victims of police brutality. What is clear that massive deregulation, austerity, imperialism, and a violation of our civil liberties are agendas that we oppose. Christie refuses to call for investments in rebuilding our infrastructure (from roads, bridges, hospitals, our farms, etc.), in advancing social justice, and building up our environment. We want a society based on human need, not on human greed or materialism.
Crooked, murdering cops deserve no patronize. They deserve accountability and prison time. Since the slave patrols of over a century ago, the police institution has members who are involved murder, rape, abuse, and other forms of terrorism against black people and other people. We know about their fraudulent abuse of workers standing up for labor rights back during the 19th and 20th centuries. We know about what they did in the Bonus March back in the early 20th century when they assaulted people who were just demanding benefits. We saw what some of them did to innocent, peaceful protesters in Selma during 1965 when men, women, and children were beaten bloody. We see the NYPD today with many of them illegally spying on activities and murdering innocent black people in our generation. Some of their members killed Freddie Gray, Sean Bell, Kimani Gray, and other Brothers and Sisters. They or the NYPD are over 30,000 in number, but we have the truth on our side. We won’t back down. The ancestors are with us and we know about the militarization, the sound weapons, and other devices of control that many cops use in trying to intimidate the public. Decades ago, the Panther 21 stood up for our people in New York City. Many of them were arrested. One hero who was arrested was Afeni Shakur. She not only defended herself, but her will, her intellect, and her strength caused her to win the case which was brought against her. Today, we live in a new generation filled with economic inequality, racism, ecological problems, and sexism. Yet, we are not dismayed by the obstacles. We have a known history of continuing onward despite the obstacles. Patrick Lynch talking about the Mayor having blood on his hands is really disrespectful. If I was mayor of NYC, I tell Lynch to say those comments to my face, and then we will have a real discussion. There are a lot of words that describe Patrick Lynch that I can't mention here. We know those words. With that being said, terrorist cops deserve no respect. People have the right to protest against police barbaric tyranny against so many communities nationwide and worldwide. The challenge has been made in our generation, we accept the challenge, and will never bow before tyranny. It is liberty for us and no acceptance of the status quo. The NYPD's calls for a boycott should inspire us more. We’re black and we have the right to stand up for racial and social justice. #Black Lives Matter.This mayoral race will be a long, tough campaign. Nick Mosby has the right to run. He’s a citizen and he’s a resident of Baltimore. Many other people are running. The situation in Baltimore existed for a long time from poverty, the closing of factories, and the neglect of many of the poorer communities of Baltimore (while richer areas of Baltimore have been massively developed over the course of 20 years). So, regardless of who the new Mayor of Baltimore is, this human being have to fight against poverty (unemployment and vacant buildings must be dealt with), struggling schools, and police brutality. In the final analysis, the youth, the working class, the poor, and the real activists of Baltimore should come together in forming independent economic and political solutions. Collective power is vital.
By Timothy
Monday, October 26, 2015
Afro-Iranians Part 2
http://www.wwwebart.com/riverart/zanzibar/index.htm
http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php/584849-The-Ancient-Iranians-and-Iraqis-were-black-part-1/page4
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africansindianocean/essay-persian-gulf.php
http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php/469564-Afro-Pakistani-and-other-Sheedis
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africansindianocean/essay-south-asia.php
http://yomommablack.com/pictures-of-afro-iranians-a-legacy-of-natural-black-people-of-the-iranian-land/
http://iranian.com/posts/afro-iran-the-unknown-minority-51906/jumpto/idcomment-84971
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=64
http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=next_topic;f=15;t=008496;go=older
http://diasporicroots.tumblr.com/post/37635497005/diasporadash-malika-and-khadijah-haqq-are
Historical and Cultural Information in late October of 2015
The situation in the Middle East definitely existed in large part by the imperialist policies from the West spanning decades. After WWI, the Ottoman Empire was defeated. European imperialist nations carved up the Ottoman Empire and other areas of the Middle East too. There were secret treaties like Sykes-Picot where Britain and France divided the region into separate states. These states were ruled either by imperialists directly or by puppet Arabic potentates. This bad policy artificially separated peoples and recognized many nation states while dismissing others like the Kurds. The Kurds would be subject to national oppression then and now. The British supported the Balfour Declaration, which set in motion events which caused Israel to be a nation by 1948 (after World War II and the evil Holocaust) while the indigenous Palestinian people would be dispossessed of their land for decades. After WWII, America became a dominant power in the world beyond the European powers in the Middle East. Europe and America had heavily influenced of the oil of Saudi Arabia. The USA wanted to contain Arabic nationalism in the region and any Russian influence in the region too (under the guise of the West promoting "anti-communism"). That is why the U.S. and the West supported reactionary dictatorships and monarchies (in order to prevent independent movements and any anti-capitalist movement from taking hold in the Middle East in a massive level). The dictator Shah Pahlavi came into power in 1954 with US/British backing after Operation Ajax. America has consistently supported Israel, especially after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six Day War. Israel has been used a monitor and watch person of the region. Israeli has committed numerous international war crimes. Any nationalist or secular left wing movements in the region have been checked by the U.S.-backed fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. So, America has supported counterrevolution in the region (like being against national liberation, against the labor movement, and against real democracy). The Iranian Revolution in 1979 changed the whole world. The Shah was toppled and the reactionary Ayatollah Khomeini regime opposed America. The US, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabian backed fundamentalist Mujahedeen fought the Afghanistan’s then Stalinist nation. The USSR invaded and occupied the nation. The USSR left Afghanistan in defeat. America once supported Osama bin Laden in the 1980’s and Saddam Hussein (in his stalemate war against Iran where over 1 million people died between Iraqis and Iranians). Later, Iraq had 14 billion dollars in debt. Iraq invaded Kuwait to get its resources, oil, etc. Hussein mistakenly thought that America gave him the greenlight to invade Kuwait, but President George H. W. Bush launched the Persian Gulf War (since this invasion from Saddam Hussein in his mind would threaten American-backed oil resources in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). George H. W. Buh once inspired the Shias and the Kurds in Iraq to rise up against Saddam. Yet, they weren’t supported by the US, so the Iraqi army massacred thousands of people. Bush Sr. used a no fly zone in the Kurdish North and the Shia South, which caused sectarian strife and was the beginning unofficially of the Iraqi nation. Afterwards, murderous sanctions in Iraq caused over 1 million Iraqis to die. Al-Qaeda grew. During the late 1990’s and the early 21st century, the neo-cons promoted an invasion of Iraq when Iraq was no direct threat to America. American military bases grew all over the Middle East.
Afro-Iranians have a long history. For centuries and for thousands of years, black people have lived in Iran. There are darker features shown in the ancient images of Persepolis. There were Afro-Arabic merchants during the 9th century trading in the region. There are Afro-Iraqis, Afro-Pakistanis, Afro-Kuwaitis, Afro-Omanis, Afro-Saudis, etc. Today, most Afro-Iranians are found in Hormozagan, Sistan, Baluchistan, and Khuzestan. Most of them are Shias, Sunnis, and some follow the religion of Zaar. Many Afro-Iranians voluntarily traveled into Iran. Many Africans wanted to go into Iran in search of being paid as sailors. Many Afro-Iranians came to Iran as slaves who were captured by Arabic salve traders (in the Indian Ocean slave trade). Many black people traveled into Saudi Arabia, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands, etc. During the Qajar dynasty, many wealthy households imported Black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work. They came from the Zanj or the Bantu speaking peoples that lived along the coast of Southeast Africa (i.e. from Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi). Mohammad Shah Qajar (under British pressure) issued a firman which suppressed the slave trade in 1848. Afro-Iranians back then worked as stone breakers, woodcutters, and bodyguards. Many worked in royal courts. Afro-Iranians fought against slavery as activists, as abolitionists, and some used pressure in Iran. Slavery was completely banned in Iran by 1928. Afro-Iranians have their own culture and traditional practices. Afro-Iranian Beeta Baghoolizadeh said that many lighter skinned Iranians from Tehran are surprised at the Afro-Iranians since Afro-Iranians don’t make up a majority of the population of Iran. In 2007, a documentary film, Afro-Iranian Lives, was released and examined the Afro-Iranian experience. The documentary talks about the socioeconomic activities, performances, and rituals of the Afro-Iranians in rural and urban communities of Sistan, Baluchistan, Hurmuzgan, and Khuzestan. Afro-Iranians celebrate their African heritage, clothing style, music, dance, and their oral traditions plus rituals. Iranian scholar Dr. Behnaz Mirzai has done excellent research on the culture of the Afro-Iranian people too. He has made the “Afro-Iranian Lives” documentary in 2007 and the “African-Baluchi Trance Dance” documentary in 2012. Los Angeles born Afro-Iranian Beeta Bahoolizadeh’s research deals with constructions of race and the transition from subject to citizen during the late Qajar period, particularly concerning the legacy of slavery and racism in Iran. She penned an in depth article complete with pictures and videos in June 2012. Today, many well-known Afro-Iranians are Abdolreza Barzegari, Ali Firouzi, Malika and Khadijah Haqq, Mehrab Shahrokhi, and other people.
We need to improve ourselves and eliminate structural racism and economic injustice simultaneously. Just because we should improve our lives and condemn evils in our community doesn't mean that we ought to ignore how discrimination, the prison industrial complex, the War on Drugs and racism (which aren't the fault of black people collectively at all) has harmed the lives of many black people. Our community has addressed issues in our community for decades. Also, police brutality should never be placed under the rug. Terrorist cops who kill innocent black people must be in prison. We have an epidemic of police brutality. The teenage girl deserves justice just like Tamir Rice and others. Crime in NYC continues its historic downward trend. Overall, crime dropped 6 percent in NYC compared to last year. Between 2001 and 2009, the crime rate in Atlanta dropped by 40 percent. Homicide fell 57 percent in the same time period. In the last 20 years, we’ve seen a sharp drop in homicide among blacks, from a victimization rate of 39.4 homicides per 100,000 in 1991 to a rate of roughly 20 homicides per 100,000 in 2008. Likewise, the offending rate for blacks has dropped from 51.1 offenders per 100,000 in 1991 to 24.7 offenders per 100,000 in 2008. In fact, any given black person is 2.75 times as likely to be murdered by a white person as any given white person is to be murdered by an African American. Most crime is done intraracially. Certainly, it is an issue that must be discussed. Fetishizing biracial or multiethnic children is disrespectful, wrong, and it advances the evil of colorism. The view that biracial people are more attractive than black people is a total lie. People who embrace that lie are wrong, many of them are vindictive, many of them have self-hatred, and many of them are outright anti-black. The Eurocentric faux standards are nothing new. Just because someone is light or biracial doesn’t mean that person is superior. Black people, biracial people, and multiracial human beings should be treated as human beings. The video does show the views of biracial people and their struggles. I find that to be interesting. The testimonies of the biracial people in the video prove that biracial people are diverse and their humanity should be respected. Any relationship should not be fetishized. We should have discussions about these subjects, so change can come in a positive direction. As black people, our melanin is beautiful, we will continue to fight for justice, and there is strength in our cultural heritage.
#Black is Beautiful.
Nina Simone was a heroic, strong black woman. The documentary film on Nina Simone (1933-2003) entitled, “What Happened, Miss Simone?” is certainly amazing. I do recommend it for anyone. It has been recently released on Netflix. It is informative. It is important to understand the life and times of the great singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone. Nina Simone was more than a singer. She was a songwriter and a famous pianist. She performed jazz, folk music, and other forms of music that dealt with racial and social justice issues. She knew about classical music, gospel, blues, and folk. The documentary was exquisite in showing her many compositions and renditions like “Mississippi God__,” “Backlash Blues,” “Strange Fruit,” “I Loves You Porgy,” “A’int Got No/I Got Life,” “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” and other works. Her talent was supreme in every measure. The documentary has interviews from Simone’s family members, friends, and musical colleagues. Lisa Simone Kelly is Simone’s only child. She worked closely with the documentary effort. Al Schackman is Simone’s longtime guitarist and musical director. Al Schackman has shown respect for her for over four decades. Nina Simone was born in the segregated city of Tryon, North Carolina in 1933 as Eunice Waymon. She played the piano at 4. She went into revival meetings in the church and her mother was a Methodist preacher. Her mother's name was Mary Kate Waymon. Simone's father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who at one time owned a dry cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Nina took piano lessons from the Englishwoman Muriel Mazzanonvich. Muriel’s husband was the painter Lawrence and they lived in Tryon. In her autobiography, Simone speaks highly of the Mazzanoviches. Her teacher not only gave her lessons, but embraced her talent and provided warmth, kindness and respect. Every weekend, Eunice would cross the tracks to the white part of town to study the music of Bach, Beethoven and Liszt. Nina Simone suffered racism and discrimination in the Jim Crow South. At a piano recital, she insisted that she would not play unless her parents were brought to the front row, from which they had been removed to make place for whites. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Simone's continued education. With the help of this scholarship money she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina. At the age of 17, Nina Simone left North Carolina. She came to study in a summer program at New York’s Julliard School and then she went to Philadelphia. At Philadelphia, she was expected to enroll in the famous Curtis Institute of Music. Her application was rejected. So, she continued to work as a young performer. She performed music in an Atlantic City, New Jersey bar in 1954. She was paid $90 a week. She used the named Nina Simone (Nina meaning little girl in Spanish. Simone was from the surname of the French left wing actress Simone Signoret). By the late 1950’s, she made more well-known singles like “I Loves You, Porgy” in 1958. She sang at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960 the song “Little Liza Jane.” By the early 1960’s, she performed at New York City’s Greenwich Village. Nina Simone was a strong activist in the civil rights movement. She was into political activism. She wanted to use her art to give notice to the times that she was living in.
She associated with many great African American artists and intellectuals like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry. She was espically a close friend to Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry was a progressive activist and her play Raisin in the Sun had become a Broadway hit and was nominated for several Tony Awards in 1959. Simone later wrote, intriguingly, that when she and Hansberry got together, “It was always about Marx, Lenin and revolution—typical girl talk.” In 1964, she changed record distributors, from the American Colpix to the Dutch Philips, which also meant a change in the contents of her recordings. Simone had always included songs in her repertoire that drew upon her African-American origins (such as "Brown Baby" and "Zungo" on Nina at the Village Gate in 1962). On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (live recording, 1964), however, Simone for the first time openly addressed the racial inequality that was prevalent in the United States with the song "Mississippi God___" The evil 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four Alabama schoolgirls, angered many people. She wrote her well known song “Mississippi God___” soon after the incident (the song was addressing the evil killing of 4 little girls in 1964 and the assassination of Medgar Evers in 1963). The lyrics were true. They exposed Southern racism (“Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi, god__!”) was later sung by Simone at the conclusion of the March 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. To mark the occasion, she changed the lyric slightly, to “Selma made me lose my rest.” Nina Simone spoke during the Selma to Montgomery marches. She publicly believed in self-defense while maintaining that she and her family believed that all races are equal. She married New York City police detective Andrew Stroud in 1961. They divorced in 1970. Later, the growth of the anti-Vietnam War movement and the Black Power movement existed. There were great achievements of the civil rights struggle, but economic inequality persisted. There was the strike of the working class. There were the rebellions of 1964 to 1968. A new era came about after the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Simone rejected reformism and embraced more Black Nationalist ideas. Many of the old school civil rights establishment leaders integrated into the capitalist Democratic Party while many of the Black Nationalist leaders like once SNCC leader Kwame Ture legitimately exposed white racism. Also, some black nationalists were hostile to the working class when we need the working class for liberation. She was influenced by Kwame Ture. She exiled voluntarily during the 1970’s because of the racism and oppression found in the States. She went into Liberia, Switzerland, and finally France. She had mental illness and frequent psychological breakdowns, which was said. She has to take a break from music at times. When her friends and colleagues found her in appalling conditions in Paris, they helped her out. They gave her medical treatment. Schackman was a true friend for helping Nina Simone out. She was able for periods to continue performing both in Europe and occasionally in the US. She made many live performances in the early 1990’s. After being treated for breast cancer for a number of years, she died at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France, near Marseille, in April 21, 2003. She passed away in her sleep. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and has appeared on Broadway in Aida. Nina Simone's life was filled with tragedy and strength. Her life was complex and long too. Nina Simone was an intellectual genius who used her music to show what was happening in the 20th century. Art must reflect the times and we must know about the social parameters of the times too. Nina Simone was an excellent musician and her music was against oppression, racism, and injustice.
RIP Sister Nina Simone.
By Timothy
Afro-Iranians have a long history. For centuries and for thousands of years, black people have lived in Iran. There are darker features shown in the ancient images of Persepolis. There were Afro-Arabic merchants during the 9th century trading in the region. There are Afro-Iraqis, Afro-Pakistanis, Afro-Kuwaitis, Afro-Omanis, Afro-Saudis, etc. Today, most Afro-Iranians are found in Hormozagan, Sistan, Baluchistan, and Khuzestan. Most of them are Shias, Sunnis, and some follow the religion of Zaar. Many Afro-Iranians voluntarily traveled into Iran. Many Africans wanted to go into Iran in search of being paid as sailors. Many Afro-Iranians came to Iran as slaves who were captured by Arabic salve traders (in the Indian Ocean slave trade). Many black people traveled into Saudi Arabia, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands, etc. During the Qajar dynasty, many wealthy households imported Black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work. They came from the Zanj or the Bantu speaking peoples that lived along the coast of Southeast Africa (i.e. from Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi). Mohammad Shah Qajar (under British pressure) issued a firman which suppressed the slave trade in 1848. Afro-Iranians back then worked as stone breakers, woodcutters, and bodyguards. Many worked in royal courts. Afro-Iranians fought against slavery as activists, as abolitionists, and some used pressure in Iran. Slavery was completely banned in Iran by 1928. Afro-Iranians have their own culture and traditional practices. Afro-Iranian Beeta Baghoolizadeh said that many lighter skinned Iranians from Tehran are surprised at the Afro-Iranians since Afro-Iranians don’t make up a majority of the population of Iran. In 2007, a documentary film, Afro-Iranian Lives, was released and examined the Afro-Iranian experience. The documentary talks about the socioeconomic activities, performances, and rituals of the Afro-Iranians in rural and urban communities of Sistan, Baluchistan, Hurmuzgan, and Khuzestan. Afro-Iranians celebrate their African heritage, clothing style, music, dance, and their oral traditions plus rituals. Iranian scholar Dr. Behnaz Mirzai has done excellent research on the culture of the Afro-Iranian people too. He has made the “Afro-Iranian Lives” documentary in 2007 and the “African-Baluchi Trance Dance” documentary in 2012. Los Angeles born Afro-Iranian Beeta Bahoolizadeh’s research deals with constructions of race and the transition from subject to citizen during the late Qajar period, particularly concerning the legacy of slavery and racism in Iran. She penned an in depth article complete with pictures and videos in June 2012. Today, many well-known Afro-Iranians are Abdolreza Barzegari, Ali Firouzi, Malika and Khadijah Haqq, Mehrab Shahrokhi, and other people.
We need to improve ourselves and eliminate structural racism and economic injustice simultaneously. Just because we should improve our lives and condemn evils in our community doesn't mean that we ought to ignore how discrimination, the prison industrial complex, the War on Drugs and racism (which aren't the fault of black people collectively at all) has harmed the lives of many black people. Our community has addressed issues in our community for decades. Also, police brutality should never be placed under the rug. Terrorist cops who kill innocent black people must be in prison. We have an epidemic of police brutality. The teenage girl deserves justice just like Tamir Rice and others. Crime in NYC continues its historic downward trend. Overall, crime dropped 6 percent in NYC compared to last year. Between 2001 and 2009, the crime rate in Atlanta dropped by 40 percent. Homicide fell 57 percent in the same time period. In the last 20 years, we’ve seen a sharp drop in homicide among blacks, from a victimization rate of 39.4 homicides per 100,000 in 1991 to a rate of roughly 20 homicides per 100,000 in 2008. Likewise, the offending rate for blacks has dropped from 51.1 offenders per 100,000 in 1991 to 24.7 offenders per 100,000 in 2008. In fact, any given black person is 2.75 times as likely to be murdered by a white person as any given white person is to be murdered by an African American. Most crime is done intraracially. Certainly, it is an issue that must be discussed. Fetishizing biracial or multiethnic children is disrespectful, wrong, and it advances the evil of colorism. The view that biracial people are more attractive than black people is a total lie. People who embrace that lie are wrong, many of them are vindictive, many of them have self-hatred, and many of them are outright anti-black. The Eurocentric faux standards are nothing new. Just because someone is light or biracial doesn’t mean that person is superior. Black people, biracial people, and multiracial human beings should be treated as human beings. The video does show the views of biracial people and their struggles. I find that to be interesting. The testimonies of the biracial people in the video prove that biracial people are diverse and their humanity should be respected. Any relationship should not be fetishized. We should have discussions about these subjects, so change can come in a positive direction. As black people, our melanin is beautiful, we will continue to fight for justice, and there is strength in our cultural heritage.
#Black is Beautiful.
Nina Simone was a heroic, strong black woman. The documentary film on Nina Simone (1933-2003) entitled, “What Happened, Miss Simone?” is certainly amazing. I do recommend it for anyone. It has been recently released on Netflix. It is informative. It is important to understand the life and times of the great singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone. Nina Simone was more than a singer. She was a songwriter and a famous pianist. She performed jazz, folk music, and other forms of music that dealt with racial and social justice issues. She knew about classical music, gospel, blues, and folk. The documentary was exquisite in showing her many compositions and renditions like “Mississippi God__,” “Backlash Blues,” “Strange Fruit,” “I Loves You Porgy,” “A’int Got No/I Got Life,” “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” and other works. Her talent was supreme in every measure. The documentary has interviews from Simone’s family members, friends, and musical colleagues. Lisa Simone Kelly is Simone’s only child. She worked closely with the documentary effort. Al Schackman is Simone’s longtime guitarist and musical director. Al Schackman has shown respect for her for over four decades. Nina Simone was born in the segregated city of Tryon, North Carolina in 1933 as Eunice Waymon. She played the piano at 4. She went into revival meetings in the church and her mother was a Methodist preacher. Her mother's name was Mary Kate Waymon. Simone's father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who at one time owned a dry cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Nina took piano lessons from the Englishwoman Muriel Mazzanonvich. Muriel’s husband was the painter Lawrence and they lived in Tryon. In her autobiography, Simone speaks highly of the Mazzanoviches. Her teacher not only gave her lessons, but embraced her talent and provided warmth, kindness and respect. Every weekend, Eunice would cross the tracks to the white part of town to study the music of Bach, Beethoven and Liszt. Nina Simone suffered racism and discrimination in the Jim Crow South. At a piano recital, she insisted that she would not play unless her parents were brought to the front row, from which they had been removed to make place for whites. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Simone's continued education. With the help of this scholarship money she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina. At the age of 17, Nina Simone left North Carolina. She came to study in a summer program at New York’s Julliard School and then she went to Philadelphia. At Philadelphia, she was expected to enroll in the famous Curtis Institute of Music. Her application was rejected. So, she continued to work as a young performer. She performed music in an Atlantic City, New Jersey bar in 1954. She was paid $90 a week. She used the named Nina Simone (Nina meaning little girl in Spanish. Simone was from the surname of the French left wing actress Simone Signoret). By the late 1950’s, she made more well-known singles like “I Loves You, Porgy” in 1958. She sang at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960 the song “Little Liza Jane.” By the early 1960’s, she performed at New York City’s Greenwich Village. Nina Simone was a strong activist in the civil rights movement. She was into political activism. She wanted to use her art to give notice to the times that she was living in.
She associated with many great African American artists and intellectuals like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry. She was espically a close friend to Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry was a progressive activist and her play Raisin in the Sun had become a Broadway hit and was nominated for several Tony Awards in 1959. Simone later wrote, intriguingly, that when she and Hansberry got together, “It was always about Marx, Lenin and revolution—typical girl talk.” In 1964, she changed record distributors, from the American Colpix to the Dutch Philips, which also meant a change in the contents of her recordings. Simone had always included songs in her repertoire that drew upon her African-American origins (such as "Brown Baby" and "Zungo" on Nina at the Village Gate in 1962). On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (live recording, 1964), however, Simone for the first time openly addressed the racial inequality that was prevalent in the United States with the song "Mississippi God___" The evil 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four Alabama schoolgirls, angered many people. She wrote her well known song “Mississippi God___” soon after the incident (the song was addressing the evil killing of 4 little girls in 1964 and the assassination of Medgar Evers in 1963). The lyrics were true. They exposed Southern racism (“Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi, god__!”) was later sung by Simone at the conclusion of the March 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. To mark the occasion, she changed the lyric slightly, to “Selma made me lose my rest.” Nina Simone spoke during the Selma to Montgomery marches. She publicly believed in self-defense while maintaining that she and her family believed that all races are equal. She married New York City police detective Andrew Stroud in 1961. They divorced in 1970. Later, the growth of the anti-Vietnam War movement and the Black Power movement existed. There were great achievements of the civil rights struggle, but economic inequality persisted. There was the strike of the working class. There were the rebellions of 1964 to 1968. A new era came about after the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Simone rejected reformism and embraced more Black Nationalist ideas. Many of the old school civil rights establishment leaders integrated into the capitalist Democratic Party while many of the Black Nationalist leaders like once SNCC leader Kwame Ture legitimately exposed white racism. Also, some black nationalists were hostile to the working class when we need the working class for liberation. She was influenced by Kwame Ture. She exiled voluntarily during the 1970’s because of the racism and oppression found in the States. She went into Liberia, Switzerland, and finally France. She had mental illness and frequent psychological breakdowns, which was said. She has to take a break from music at times. When her friends and colleagues found her in appalling conditions in Paris, they helped her out. They gave her medical treatment. Schackman was a true friend for helping Nina Simone out. She was able for periods to continue performing both in Europe and occasionally in the US. She made many live performances in the early 1990’s. After being treated for breast cancer for a number of years, she died at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France, near Marseille, in April 21, 2003. She passed away in her sleep. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and has appeared on Broadway in Aida. Nina Simone's life was filled with tragedy and strength. Her life was complex and long too. Nina Simone was an intellectual genius who used her music to show what was happening in the 20th century. Art must reflect the times and we must know about the social parameters of the times too. Nina Simone was an excellent musician and her music was against oppression, racism, and injustice.
RIP Sister Nina Simone.
By Timothy
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Information on the GOP
Black unemployment reached it's peak under Ronald "I support Apartheid" Reagan...And remember Reagn supported apartheid...
-truevoice4real
_________________
Since you want to "walk down memory lane I thought you might as well take this with you....
·
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his autobiography:
"The
Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and
extremism."
That was his description of the 1964 Republican
National Convention. He also referred to the Republican convention as "the
frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right."
-truevoice4real
_________________
Vouchers in some states are received via a lottery system therfore all the students are not given the same opportunity...Why not do something that helps all the students instead of a select few and why pay certain people in the community to push this stupid idea of vouchers...??
-truevoice4real
_________________
The GOP has a racist agenda ..I don't see democratics engaged in voter
suppression , I don't see democrats inviting white supremaicsts to speak at CPAC
events , I don't see democrats with numerous white supremacists running for
office as republicans , i don't see democrats dening healthcare to thousands of
people in red states because they do not want to expand medicare , I don't see
democrats insulting Hispanics and dragging their feet on immigration reform , I
don't see democrats cutting taxes for the rich and cutting veterans benefits , i
don't see democrats creating phony scandals that even conservatives are sick of
hearing about , I don't see democrats lying about MLK jr saying that he was a republican when it is clear that he was not a republican AND MLK Jr never voted for or endorsed any republican , I don't see democrats
comparing healthcare to slavery , I don't see democrats with a racist tea party
that tells businesses to stop hiring people to make Obama look bad , I don't see democrats making their goal as a party to make Obama a one term president and ignore the problems we have in this country...I don;t see democratics waiting until a crazy racist walks into a church and kills nine people before they return campaign money from white supremacist groups - Mia Love was one of those republicans that accepted racist money then returned after the shooting...I don't see democratics calling that shooting "an attack on religion" instead a clear racist attack...I don't see democrats defending and even applauding racist white cops that kill unarmed Black people that in most cases are not committing any crimes...I don't see democratics blaming the "out of closet acts of racism" on Obama since it is racist republicans racists can't stand the fact that a Black man is in the white house...I don't see democrats going to the white house and waving confederate flags....I don;t see democratics advising citizens to get assault weapons and armor penetrating bullets to fight an overly aggressive government - a government by the way that will be armed with tanks and bombs - I guess some republicans can't wait for another civil war...I don't see democratics with a racist political arm like the tea party who's rallies were used by white supremacist groups to recruit members ....etc etc
..Those acts of stupid racism and more are all products of the racist
GOP...That's why people of color do
not support them.....Over 70% of the
minority vote went to Obama so it's time to stop ignoring the truth and do
something about it....And here's a question that never seems to get a straight answer from republicans....
What has the GOP done for the country in the last 15 years...????
-truevoice4real
_________________
The same tea party that asked business to stop hiring people and the same tea party that wants to remove slavery from textbooks.. ????....I think I'll pass as will most Black people including some Black republicans..
-truevoice4real
_________________
Jobs Bills passed by ther GOP..???....That depends on who you ask and how much research you've done.....
HR 3630 - The Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act of 2011 - This bill does indeed extend the "docfix" and unemployment insurance for a year, but with a hefty price.
• freezes Federal workers pay; requires issuance of a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline in advance of the proposed routing by Nebraska; suspends the newly-issued mercury regulations: 100% expensing of business equipment (including private jets); Another so-called "jobs bill", HR 1938, was passed giving a November 1, 2011 deadline for the Keystone pipeline.
• cuts unemployment insurance benefits from 99-week maximum down to a 59-week maximum; drug-test UI recipients; cuts funding for key provisions of the Affordable Care Act ; means-tests unemployment insurance benefits and food stamp programs and increases Federal employees' contributions to their retirement system by 1.5% while freezing pay, so their pensions take a double-whammy.
• repeals the new timing rules for estimated corporate tax payments for companies with assets of $1 billion or more
HR 1633 - Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011
• This bill prevents the EPA from issuing or finalizing regulations revising air quality standards under the Clean Air Act
HR 10 - Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act of 2011
• Guts the regulation process; Call this one the Carte Blanche For Congress To Kill All Regulatory Authority Bill.
HR 3010 - Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011
• somewhat less onerous version of HR 10;
HR 527 - Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2011
• limit EPA, OSHA and CFPB regulations while presumably protecting "small" closely-held Subchapter S corporations like Koch Industries.
HR 3012 - Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011
• eliminating employment-based immigrant visa caps and raising the percentage of total visas granted to 15% from 7%. For this one, I'll say it IS a jobs bill, but not a jobs bill for American workers. It is the "Elite Immigration Jobs Bill of 2011".
HR 3094 - Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act
• redefines collective bargaining units; union busting
HR 2930 - Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act
• exempts startups raising less than $1 million in venture capital from small investors from SEC registration and oversight. - anti-regulatory for large corpo to splinter up and avoid oversight regulation
HR 2940 - Access to Capital for Job Creators Act
• anti-oversight - Let's call this and its evil twins HR 2930 and HR 1965 the: "Ponzi Scheme Coverup Acts of 2011"
HR 1965 - Securities Laws Amendment
• It's a "hide from the SEC" bill. Its companion, HR 1970, would exempt SEC registration of public offerings under $50 million rather than the current $5 million threshold.
Then there is Gutting of the EPA - deregulation of the pollution industries - elimination of environmental standards section
• HR 2273 removes coal ash regulation from the EPA and hands it to the states. States like North Carolina where Governor McCrory is powed by Duke energy
• HR 2681 guts cement manufacturing emission standards
• HR 2250 guts on EPA boiler MACT rules.
• HR 2401 would require analysis of all EPA regulations relating to air, waste, water and climate change. [allows republicans another lever to stop regulation]
• HR 2018 would restrict EPA from issuing any revisions to existing water standards..
• HR 2021 amends the Clean Air Act to open oil and gas exploration off the Alaska coast.
• HR 910 strips the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act
• HR 872 expands the use of pesticides, fungicides and rodent without EPA approval.
Catering to Big Petrochemical corporations
• HR 1231 actually brute force legislation requiring the Administration (President) to allow offshore Oil & Gas drilling
• HR 1229 another brute force legislation bill
• HR 1230 And more brute force legislation from Big Oil; forces sales of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Outer Continental Shelf of Virginia.
And on to Special Interests and General Pandering Legislation section
• HR 1904 Resolution Copper, LLC can mine copper on what is now part of the Tonto National Forest.
• HJ Res 37 GOP disapprovee of Net neutrality
• HR 2587 anti union Bil - gutting of NLRB authority to have any say in whether union jobs can be outsourced to a non-union (right to work for less) state
Since then the GOP has added more to the list of Non-job "Jobs Bills" (these links work)
The GOP more recent use of the stalled "Jobs Bill" ruse: At least 46 Bills #Stuck in the Senate March of 2013
Bills ranging from drug testing recipients of various Social programs. HR 890: drug testing and slashing social programs. More Oil and Gas tax expenditure giveaways, fighting Net Neutrality; HR 10: sucking money out of public education or ending it altogether; More EPA gutting (HR 3826: EPA green house gas rule repealed) ; HR 2824: deregulation of mining pollution of streams etc.; bypassing the Clean Water Act (HR 5078); HR 3094: union busting; HR 4453: massive corpo tax cuts; HR 4: the GOP's so-called American Jobs Act amounts to a potpourri of pollution, deregulation, privatizing public lands all in one; HR 3: Keystone XL pipeline bypassing all restrictions; HR 1406: lower pay for workers (good video) | with republicans calling it "flexibility"; HR 1613: ocean drilling expansion; more trickle down nonsense with the same goal unchanged - profit above all else
With many more Bills that have been "rebranded" from the earlier list of Bills. Vitually identical but with a new greener washyer name
-truevoice4real
_________________
Whenever I hear about republicans creating a jobs bill I always do a little research...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his colleague Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a bill they call the “Economic Freedom Zones Act of 2013.” Among other things, the bill would exempt polluters in high-poverty regions from complying with (and would bar the U.S. EPA from enforcing) water pollution permitting requirements under Clean Water Act section 402. (Adding insult to injury, the two politicians are billing this proposal as an anti-poverty measure.)
During the last few days, residents of the nearby Charleston, WV, area have been treated to a tragic glimpse of what a life free of environmental protections might be like. For people in the Appalachian coal-bearing region, these are just the latest developments in a long-running assault on human health and the environment.
The impact of such an extreme proposal is difficult to overstate. While the Clean Water Act strictly prohibits the discharge of pollutants without a permit, it is section 402 of the Act that the EPA relies on in most cases to impose enforceable pollution controls on specific sources and discharges. The Economic Freedom Zones Act would hamstring EPA’s enforcement of water pollution restrictions and oversight of state pollution permitting activities.
Fast forward to an incident in neighboring West Virginia. Early on the morning of Jan. 9, Charleston residents reported smelling a strong licorice odor. Hours later, investigators with the state Department of Environmental Protection traced the odor to a chemical company’s storage tank located on the banks of the Elk River. An estimated 7,500 gallons were spilled.
The name of the chemical company—I am not making this up—is Freedom Industries.
News reports state that Freedom Industries did not report the spill to the DEP until just after noon on Thursday. Worse, despite the fact that its chemical holding tank is located just upriver from the drinking water intake that serves residents in nine counties, Freedom Industries apparently failed to notify the region’s water company at all. The chemical company also failed to report the specific chemical (4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or Crude MCHM, a chemical used in processing coal) to the water company, delaying effective clean-up action for another several hours. Residents still lack access to clean tap water, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people have been severely disrupted.
A pollution discharge of this sort is completely unacceptable. So is a world in which federal regulators might be barred by politically motivated legislation like the Economic Freedom Zones Act from using every tool they have to prevent and clean up similar spills in the future.
Rand Paul (R) wants to eliminate the taxes on capital gains and dividends. Most of the income of the very wealthy comes from capital gains and dividends.
Combine that with his 17% flat rate and, by my calculation, the 1% would have paid about $350 billion less in taxes than they did in 2012 if his code had been in place. That's about 85% less than they did. To collect the same amount of revenue, that means the 99% would have to pay $350 billion more (45% more than they did).
With 99% of the customers of business paying 45% more in taxes, demand for goods and services would fall, people would be laid off, wages would fall as a result of a looser labor market, automatic safety net spending would increase, and the deficit would rise.
This is not a jobs bill but a anti-regiulation bill aimed at the enviroment and a tax cut for the rich...More trickle down nonsense that has never worked and will never work
-truevoice4real
_________________
Yes...the GOP is engaged in voter suppression....
Wayne Bertsch, a veteran GOP consultant told the Tampa Bay Times that targeting
Democrats was always the goal in curbing early voting. "In the races I was
involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the
turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly
sent a chill down our spines."
Another tactic, favored in Texas and Florida,
is to target nonprofit groups that conduct voter-registration drives (the League
of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People). This is achieved by imposing onerous new training, registration and/or
liability burdens on the groups' volunteers. The proportion of African-American
and Latino voters who register through third-party drives is about twice what it
is for whites.
Republican campaign consultant Scott Tranter
"A lot of us
are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do
everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID,
sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be," Tranter said with
a laugh.
Franklin County (Columbus) GOP Chair Doug Preisse.. "I guess I
really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the
urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine." Preisse is not some rogue
operative but the chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio's second-largest
county and a close adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Pa House majority
leader Mike Turzai, said his state's voter ID law "is gonna allow Governor
Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania,"
U.S. District Judge Stephen J.
Murphy ordered Michigan election officials to immediately halt and attempt to
rectify one of the two practices -- canceling voter registrations for those
whose voter identification card is returned as undeliverable. Murphy ordered the
state to remove the "rejected" marking in the qualified voter file for all
persons whose original voter ID cards have been returned to the state as
undeliverable since Jan. 1, 2006. About 1,500 people have been removed from the
voter list in that manner this year, according to evidence presented in the
case.
Voter hours were extended in white distrcits of Ohio while voting hours
were cut in the Black districts....
In September 2014, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp expressed concern that too
many minority voters were registering to vote for the November midterms and so
he found it necessary to subpoena the records of at least one group working to
register more Black and Latino voters.
Now he has gone and "lost" 40,000
voter registration forms handed in by one group.
The Root:
According
to an Al-Jazeera report, it’s a sentiment that the staffers at Third Sector
Development are expressing. The nonprofit organization was on a mission to
register as many black and Hispanic people in the state of Georgia as possible
so that voter turnout for the upcoming midterm elections in November would be
high. And they were successful at it, until they received word that about half
of the applications they submitted for processing have gone missing in
action.
“Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000
voter-registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state’s office—but as of
last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were
still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of
those 40,000-plus applications, according to state Rep. Stacey Adams, a
Democrat,” Al-Jazeera explained.
But Secretary Kemp says, hey, we're not
doing anything differently. Sure they're not.
Georgia Secretary of State
Brain Kemp explained that his office is not doing anything differently from how
it usually processes applications. But some people aren’t buying his story,
seeing as how he’s a Republican, and black and Hispanic people tend to vote for
Democrats.
Georgia Republicans have been raising eyebrows for some time
now with regard to early voting and voter-ID issues. One state Republican didn’t
like how black and Hispanic voters had easy access to early-voting
opportunities.
They cut early voting, they've got horrible Voter ID laws,
and now the Secretary of State has 40,000 less voter registration forms than
were submitted. Jim Crow is alive and well in Georgia and surrounds, isn't it?
-truevoice4real
_________________
-truevoice4real
_________________
Since you want to "walk down memory lane I thought you might as well take this with you....
·
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his autobiography:
"The
Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and
extremism."
That was his description of the 1964 Republican
National Convention. He also referred to the Republican convention as "the
frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right."
-truevoice4real
_________________
Vouchers in some states are received via a lottery system therfore all the students are not given the same opportunity...Why not do something that helps all the students instead of a select few and why pay certain people in the community to push this stupid idea of vouchers...??
-truevoice4real
_________________
The GOP has a racist agenda ..I don't see democratics engaged in voter
suppression , I don't see democrats inviting white supremaicsts to speak at CPAC
events , I don't see democrats with numerous white supremacists running for
office as republicans , i don't see democrats dening healthcare to thousands of
people in red states because they do not want to expand medicare , I don't see
democrats insulting Hispanics and dragging their feet on immigration reform , I
don't see democrats cutting taxes for the rich and cutting veterans benefits , i
don't see democrats creating phony scandals that even conservatives are sick of
hearing about , I don't see democrats lying about MLK jr saying that he was a republican when it is clear that he was not a republican AND MLK Jr never voted for or endorsed any republican , I don't see democrats
comparing healthcare to slavery , I don't see democrats with a racist tea party
that tells businesses to stop hiring people to make Obama look bad , I don't see democrats making their goal as a party to make Obama a one term president and ignore the problems we have in this country...I don;t see democratics waiting until a crazy racist walks into a church and kills nine people before they return campaign money from white supremacist groups - Mia Love was one of those republicans that accepted racist money then returned after the shooting...I don't see democratics calling that shooting "an attack on religion" instead a clear racist attack...I don't see democrats defending and even applauding racist white cops that kill unarmed Black people that in most cases are not committing any crimes...I don't see democratics blaming the "out of closet acts of racism" on Obama since it is racist republicans racists can't stand the fact that a Black man is in the white house...I don't see democrats going to the white house and waving confederate flags....I don;t see democratics advising citizens to get assault weapons and armor penetrating bullets to fight an overly aggressive government - a government by the way that will be armed with tanks and bombs - I guess some republicans can't wait for another civil war...I don't see democratics with a racist political arm like the tea party who's rallies were used by white supremacist groups to recruit members ....etc etc
..Those acts of stupid racism and more are all products of the racist
GOP...That's why people of color do
not support them.....Over 70% of the
minority vote went to Obama so it's time to stop ignoring the truth and do
something about it....And here's a question that never seems to get a straight answer from republicans....
What has the GOP done for the country in the last 15 years...????
-truevoice4real
_________________
The same tea party that asked business to stop hiring people and the same tea party that wants to remove slavery from textbooks.. ????....I think I'll pass as will most Black people including some Black republicans..
-truevoice4real
_________________
Jobs Bills passed by ther GOP..???....That depends on who you ask and how much research you've done.....
HR 3630 - The Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act of 2011 - This bill does indeed extend the "docfix" and unemployment insurance for a year, but with a hefty price.
• freezes Federal workers pay; requires issuance of a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline in advance of the proposed routing by Nebraska; suspends the newly-issued mercury regulations: 100% expensing of business equipment (including private jets); Another so-called "jobs bill", HR 1938, was passed giving a November 1, 2011 deadline for the Keystone pipeline.
• cuts unemployment insurance benefits from 99-week maximum down to a 59-week maximum; drug-test UI recipients; cuts funding for key provisions of the Affordable Care Act ; means-tests unemployment insurance benefits and food stamp programs and increases Federal employees' contributions to their retirement system by 1.5% while freezing pay, so their pensions take a double-whammy.
• repeals the new timing rules for estimated corporate tax payments for companies with assets of $1 billion or more
HR 1633 - Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011
• This bill prevents the EPA from issuing or finalizing regulations revising air quality standards under the Clean Air Act
HR 10 - Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act of 2011
• Guts the regulation process; Call this one the Carte Blanche For Congress To Kill All Regulatory Authority Bill.
HR 3010 - Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011
• somewhat less onerous version of HR 10;
HR 527 - Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2011
• limit EPA, OSHA and CFPB regulations while presumably protecting "small" closely-held Subchapter S corporations like Koch Industries.
HR 3012 - Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011
• eliminating employment-based immigrant visa caps and raising the percentage of total visas granted to 15% from 7%. For this one, I'll say it IS a jobs bill, but not a jobs bill for American workers. It is the "Elite Immigration Jobs Bill of 2011".
HR 3094 - Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act
• redefines collective bargaining units; union busting
HR 2930 - Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act
• exempts startups raising less than $1 million in venture capital from small investors from SEC registration and oversight. - anti-regulatory for large corpo to splinter up and avoid oversight regulation
HR 2940 - Access to Capital for Job Creators Act
• anti-oversight - Let's call this and its evil twins HR 2930 and HR 1965 the: "Ponzi Scheme Coverup Acts of 2011"
HR 1965 - Securities Laws Amendment
• It's a "hide from the SEC" bill. Its companion, HR 1970, would exempt SEC registration of public offerings under $50 million rather than the current $5 million threshold.
Then there is Gutting of the EPA - deregulation of the pollution industries - elimination of environmental standards section
• HR 2273 removes coal ash regulation from the EPA and hands it to the states. States like North Carolina where Governor McCrory is powed by Duke energy
• HR 2681 guts cement manufacturing emission standards
• HR 2250 guts on EPA boiler MACT rules.
• HR 2401 would require analysis of all EPA regulations relating to air, waste, water and climate change. [allows republicans another lever to stop regulation]
• HR 2018 would restrict EPA from issuing any revisions to existing water standards..
• HR 2021 amends the Clean Air Act to open oil and gas exploration off the Alaska coast.
• HR 910 strips the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act
• HR 872 expands the use of pesticides, fungicides and rodent without EPA approval.
Catering to Big Petrochemical corporations
• HR 1231 actually brute force legislation requiring the Administration (President) to allow offshore Oil & Gas drilling
• HR 1229 another brute force legislation bill
• HR 1230 And more brute force legislation from Big Oil; forces sales of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Outer Continental Shelf of Virginia.
And on to Special Interests and General Pandering Legislation section
• HR 1904 Resolution Copper, LLC can mine copper on what is now part of the Tonto National Forest.
• HJ Res 37 GOP disapprovee of Net neutrality
• HR 2587 anti union Bil - gutting of NLRB authority to have any say in whether union jobs can be outsourced to a non-union (right to work for less) state
Since then the GOP has added more to the list of Non-job "Jobs Bills" (these links work)
The GOP more recent use of the stalled "Jobs Bill" ruse: At least 46 Bills #Stuck in the Senate March of 2013
Bills ranging from drug testing recipients of various Social programs. HR 890: drug testing and slashing social programs. More Oil and Gas tax expenditure giveaways, fighting Net Neutrality; HR 10: sucking money out of public education or ending it altogether; More EPA gutting (HR 3826: EPA green house gas rule repealed) ; HR 2824: deregulation of mining pollution of streams etc.; bypassing the Clean Water Act (HR 5078); HR 3094: union busting; HR 4453: massive corpo tax cuts; HR 4: the GOP's so-called American Jobs Act amounts to a potpourri of pollution, deregulation, privatizing public lands all in one; HR 3: Keystone XL pipeline bypassing all restrictions; HR 1406: lower pay for workers (good video) | with republicans calling it "flexibility"; HR 1613: ocean drilling expansion; more trickle down nonsense with the same goal unchanged - profit above all else
With many more Bills that have been "rebranded" from the earlier list of Bills. Vitually identical but with a new greener washyer name
-truevoice4real
_________________
Whenever I hear about republicans creating a jobs bill I always do a little research...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his colleague Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a bill they call the “Economic Freedom Zones Act of 2013.” Among other things, the bill would exempt polluters in high-poverty regions from complying with (and would bar the U.S. EPA from enforcing) water pollution permitting requirements under Clean Water Act section 402. (Adding insult to injury, the two politicians are billing this proposal as an anti-poverty measure.)
During the last few days, residents of the nearby Charleston, WV, area have been treated to a tragic glimpse of what a life free of environmental protections might be like. For people in the Appalachian coal-bearing region, these are just the latest developments in a long-running assault on human health and the environment.
The impact of such an extreme proposal is difficult to overstate. While the Clean Water Act strictly prohibits the discharge of pollutants without a permit, it is section 402 of the Act that the EPA relies on in most cases to impose enforceable pollution controls on specific sources and discharges. The Economic Freedom Zones Act would hamstring EPA’s enforcement of water pollution restrictions and oversight of state pollution permitting activities.
Fast forward to an incident in neighboring West Virginia. Early on the morning of Jan. 9, Charleston residents reported smelling a strong licorice odor. Hours later, investigators with the state Department of Environmental Protection traced the odor to a chemical company’s storage tank located on the banks of the Elk River. An estimated 7,500 gallons were spilled.
The name of the chemical company—I am not making this up—is Freedom Industries.
News reports state that Freedom Industries did not report the spill to the DEP until just after noon on Thursday. Worse, despite the fact that its chemical holding tank is located just upriver from the drinking water intake that serves residents in nine counties, Freedom Industries apparently failed to notify the region’s water company at all. The chemical company also failed to report the specific chemical (4-methylcyclohexanemethanol, or Crude MCHM, a chemical used in processing coal) to the water company, delaying effective clean-up action for another several hours. Residents still lack access to clean tap water, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people have been severely disrupted.
A pollution discharge of this sort is completely unacceptable. So is a world in which federal regulators might be barred by politically motivated legislation like the Economic Freedom Zones Act from using every tool they have to prevent and clean up similar spills in the future.
Rand Paul (R) wants to eliminate the taxes on capital gains and dividends. Most of the income of the very wealthy comes from capital gains and dividends.
Combine that with his 17% flat rate and, by my calculation, the 1% would have paid about $350 billion less in taxes than they did in 2012 if his code had been in place. That's about 85% less than they did. To collect the same amount of revenue, that means the 99% would have to pay $350 billion more (45% more than they did).
With 99% of the customers of business paying 45% more in taxes, demand for goods and services would fall, people would be laid off, wages would fall as a result of a looser labor market, automatic safety net spending would increase, and the deficit would rise.
This is not a jobs bill but a anti-regiulation bill aimed at the enviroment and a tax cut for the rich...More trickle down nonsense that has never worked and will never work
-truevoice4real
_________________
Yes...the GOP is engaged in voter suppression....
Wayne Bertsch, a veteran GOP consultant told the Tampa Bay Times that targeting
Democrats was always the goal in curbing early voting. "In the races I was
involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the
turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly
sent a chill down our spines."
Another tactic, favored in Texas and Florida,
is to target nonprofit groups that conduct voter-registration drives (the League
of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People). This is achieved by imposing onerous new training, registration and/or
liability burdens on the groups' volunteers. The proportion of African-American
and Latino voters who register through third-party drives is about twice what it
is for whites.
Republican campaign consultant Scott Tranter
"A lot of us
are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do
everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID,
sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be," Tranter said with
a laugh.
Franklin County (Columbus) GOP Chair Doug Preisse.. "I guess I
really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the
urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine." Preisse is not some rogue
operative but the chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio's second-largest
county and a close adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Pa House majority
leader Mike Turzai, said his state's voter ID law "is gonna allow Governor
Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania,"
U.S. District Judge Stephen J.
Murphy ordered Michigan election officials to immediately halt and attempt to
rectify one of the two practices -- canceling voter registrations for those
whose voter identification card is returned as undeliverable. Murphy ordered the
state to remove the "rejected" marking in the qualified voter file for all
persons whose original voter ID cards have been returned to the state as
undeliverable since Jan. 1, 2006. About 1,500 people have been removed from the
voter list in that manner this year, according to evidence presented in the
case.
Voter hours were extended in white distrcits of Ohio while voting hours
were cut in the Black districts....
In September 2014, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp expressed concern that too
many minority voters were registering to vote for the November midterms and so
he found it necessary to subpoena the records of at least one group working to
register more Black and Latino voters.
Now he has gone and "lost" 40,000
voter registration forms handed in by one group.
The Root:
According
to an Al-Jazeera report, it’s a sentiment that the staffers at Third Sector
Development are expressing. The nonprofit organization was on a mission to
register as many black and Hispanic people in the state of Georgia as possible
so that voter turnout for the upcoming midterm elections in November would be
high. And they were successful at it, until they received word that about half
of the applications they submitted for processing have gone missing in
action.
“Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000
voter-registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state’s office—but as of
last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were
still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of
those 40,000-plus applications, according to state Rep. Stacey Adams, a
Democrat,” Al-Jazeera explained.
But Secretary Kemp says, hey, we're not
doing anything differently. Sure they're not.
Georgia Secretary of State
Brain Kemp explained that his office is not doing anything differently from how
it usually processes applications. But some people aren’t buying his story,
seeing as how he’s a Republican, and black and Hispanic people tend to vote for
Democrats.
Georgia Republicans have been raising eyebrows for some time
now with regard to early voting and voter-ID issues. One state Republican didn’t
like how black and Hispanic voters had easy access to early-voting
opportunities.
They cut early voting, they've got horrible Voter ID laws,
and now the Secretary of State has 40,000 less voter registration forms than
were submitted. Jim Crow is alive and well in Georgia and surrounds, isn't it?
-truevoice4real
_________________
Afro-Iranians
http://muftah.org/a-look-at-irans-afro-iranian-community/#.Viyv-H6rTIU
http://thoughtcatalog.com/kovie-biakolo/2015/05/9-heartwarming-photos-of-the-afro-iranian-community-you-didnt-know-about-and-meeting-the-man-behind-the-camera/
http://www.afroiranianlives.com/
http://ajammc.com/2012/06/20/the-afro-iranian-community-beyond-haji-firuz-blackface-slavery-bandari-music/
http://www.afropedea.org/afro-iranian
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africansindianocean/essay-persian-gulf.php
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-black-iraqis-%E2%80%93-afro-arabian-mesopotamia-by-jide-uwechia/
http://www.okayafrica.com/news/afro-iran-african-diaspora-photo-book-mahdi-ehsaei/#slide1
http://thoughtcatalog.com/kovie-biakolo/2015/05/9-heartwarming-photos-of-the-afro-iranian-community-you-didnt-know-about-and-meeting-the-man-behind-the-camera/
http://www.afroiranianlives.com/
http://ajammc.com/2012/06/20/the-afro-iranian-community-beyond-haji-firuz-blackface-slavery-bandari-music/
http://www.afropedea.org/afro-iranian
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africansindianocean/essay-persian-gulf.php
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-black-iraqis-%E2%80%93-afro-arabian-mesopotamia-by-jide-uwechia/
http://www.okayafrica.com/news/afro-iran-african-diaspora-photo-book-mahdi-ehsaei/#slide1
The Ferguson Effect Myth
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/06/17/3670203/ferguson-effect-isnt-real-in-st-louis/
http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-brown/ferguson-and-the-mytholog_b_6228756.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/there-is-no-ferguson-effect/403132/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/07/23/so-much-for-the-ferguson-effect-killings-of-cops-are-down-25-percent-for-the-first-half-of-2015/
http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/06/busting-the-myth-of-the-ferguson-effect/396068/?utm_source=SFFB
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/report-debunks-ferguson-effect-544914499973
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/06/dont-believe-ferguson-effect-fictitious-undermine-police-reform
http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-brown/ferguson-and-the-mytholog_b_6228756.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/there-is-no-ferguson-effect/403132/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/07/23/so-much-for-the-ferguson-effect-killings-of-cops-are-down-25-percent-for-the-first-half-of-2015/
http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/06/busting-the-myth-of-the-ferguson-effect/396068/?utm_source=SFFB
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/report-debunks-ferguson-effect-544914499973
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/06/dont-believe-ferguson-effect-fictitious-undermine-police-reform
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
The Benghazi Hearing and Other News
Hillary Clinton testified for more than eight hours Thursday before the House Select Committee. This hearing was about the investigation into the tragic events of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. The attacks by extremists caused 4 Americans to be killed including the U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Hillary Clinton, in the hearing, was composed, and did not make a horrendous slip up at all. The Republicans used the incident to try to end Clinton’s Presidential campaign. The Democrats wanted to defend Clinton and say that the critics of her have partisan politics. Both parties ignored or covered up the bad actions of the CIA and the Pentagon in Libya. In other words, the U.S. allied with many Al-Qaeda linked groups which produced the Benghazi debacle in he first place. While the GOP wanted to use emails to try to pin Hillary Clinton on something (like a lapse of security preparedness of even a stand down order, which hasn't been conclusively proven), the GOP ignored the real issues about how Hillary supported the brutal Afghanistan war, the drone strikes, the evil coup in Honduras, the aid to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank plus Gaza. There was a brief exchange between Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton on the relationship between the U.S. government and Al-Qaeda funded forces in eastern Libya. The Benghazi affair happened in Eastern Libya. Pompeo displayed a blown-up photograph of Ambassador Stevens meeting with a top leader of an Islamist militia in Benghazi on September 9, 2012, two days before the attack which elements of that militia carried out on the US diplomatic facility. He also cited a cable sent by Stevens to the State Department recording the meeting, whose subject was the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi. The same meeting was reported by the New York Times in a lengthy front-page article in December 2013, but identifying the American participant only as “a US official.” The Times account described the unnamed militia leaders as hostile to the American and warning him to leave Benghazi as soon as possible, but added, “They also gushed about their gratitude for President Obama’s support in their uprising against Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.” The Qaeda linked rebels where funded by the West. These same rebels were involved in the murder of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya (the NATO campaign against Libya violated international law blatantly. Now, we have a brutal civil war in Libya). Benghazi is home to a CIA center. Many people say that the CIA had organized a massive shipment of arms, equipment and manpower from the port of Benghazi in eastern Libya, through Turkey and into Syria. The CIA facility in Benghazi was huge and well defended. Two US contract gunmen were killed by mortar fire, but the building was never in danger of being overrun—while the State Department facility was occupied only intermittently, not classified as a consulate, and lightly defended. U.S. military intelligence agencies and their radical Islamist allies disagreed on which weapons could be made available to the rebels. We do know that the CIA and the Pentagon were in alliance with Al-Qaeda elements in Libya and Syria. She or Hillary Clinton was visibly surprised by the photograph of Stevens meeting with an Al Qaeda leader in Benghazi, claimed to know nothing of it, or of the cable Stevens sent to the State Department about it. Pompeo then quickly moved on to other subjects. The Republicans just experienced a debacle. House majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the committee was created to target Hillary. The Benghazi committee operated for 17 months, which is longer than the committees on Watergate, Iran Contra, and the 9/11 attacks plus other national security disasters and political scandals. So, Hillary Clinton spoke for a long time, she was eloquent, and she didn't make any massive mistakes. The GOP was disorganized and confused. Both capitalist parties and the corporate controlled media suppressed the fact that U.S. military intelligence apparatus have aided many radical Islamist forces. The attacks in the U.S. consulate and in the CIA annex in Benghazi are evil. So, we are opposed to illegal wars, provoked civil wars, and the assassination of any person who is an American citizen (or any other human being for that matter) without trial or even a hearing.
Back in the day, Paul Robeson was one of the greatest black people of American history. He not only acted. He was a dedicated social activist throughout his life. Sister Ruby Dee was an amazing actress. Also, she opposed the Vietnam War, stood up against police brutality, fought for civil rights, protested the Iraq War, and stood up for the truth well into her 90s. Wilma Rudolph stood up for great causes too. These human beings are examples of how social activism is important in our struggle for liberation. These Brothers and Sisters lived and fought in order for us to work today. Their sacrifices are immeasurable. I don't use IG, so it is not ruining my life. At the end of the day, there should be a balance. Social media is just part of one's life. It shouldn't be the bane of one's total existence. That is why individuals have to find time to relax, have a vacation, and have fun with friends and family. There is nothing like human connection and human communication outside of the Internet. Certainly, we live in a world that is imperfect. We have to use rational, common sense actions in making ourselves and other better. There are forces in the world that want to harm our people (as racism is a system beyond just vicious prejudice. It must be eradicated in a systemic level), so we have to have the Knowledge of Self and create solutions.
The people who promote the Black Lives Matter movement are never saying that no other lives matter. They are opposed to the constant murder of innocent black human lives from the police, racists, and other vicious human beings. The criminal justice system is in shambles. That is why people from across the political spectrum want to abolish the three strikes laws, the mandatory minimum sentencing rules (which is about permitting overt, draconian sentences), and the War on Drugs. We need revolutionary change beyond reform. There is also a serious problem with the police institution filled with those who abuse the law overtly and who have murdered black human lives. Cops are never omnipotent or infallible. That is why social activists want to advance the policies of jailing crooked cops, abolishing the militarization of the local police, and to end any unjust laws. The prison industrial complex has ruined so many lives. There is no solution without drug treatment, education, reentry programs, mentorships, and other comprehensive actions. The police institution has been filled with corruption, which is why the Black Panther Party existed in the first place during 1966. The President is right on the Black Lives Matter movement’s explanation of Black Lives Matter. We need real change indeed.
A teenage girl was violated by a brute and a criminal (in Detroit). People should know about the statistics about how 60 percent of black girls and women have been the victims of coercive contact of a sexual nature by the age of 18 and almost 20 percent of Black women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape their lifetimes. It is a shame that no one intervened when she was assaulted by a sick, evil person. No one should experience what the teenage has experienced. She is traumatized for the rest of her life and she is pregnant. This is an epidemic where black girls and black women have been assaulted, harassed, and raped. Many people here have told their stories courageously about being victims of assault and harassment. Forget that no snitching garbage that has been promoted in some sections of our community for so long. We have every right to tell the authorities and make sure that rapists are put into prison where they belong. The young Sister’s family members are with her. We want justice and we want a change in society. No girl and no woman should walk down the streets in fear of harassment or sexual assault. No girl and no woman should walk down the streets and experience catcalls in a daily basis. This story and others refutes the ignorant words of Tariq Nasheed and others who want to minimize this problem. This is a real problem and it must be confronted in our black community. One word symbolizes a great point. That word is respect. Respect should be promoted much more in the world.
Samuel Burris was a hero and a strong black man. His life has been filled with courage, sacrifice, and a love for freedom. He should have been pardoned a long time ago. Likewise, more people should know about Samuel Burris' story. His story is a story of defiance against injustice and a story about an unsung hero of the abolitionist movement. A lot of people don't know that Delaware was a slave state. The more that we know about great men like Samuel Burris, the more that we learn about the stridently strong legacy of our people. I send more blessings to the descendants of Brother Samuel Burris. Bless his descendants. This is certainly a story that must be shown worldwide. I give Clutch great credit in showing information on these vital issues. First, South Africa has changed since the end of apartheid. The white supremacists couldn’t use overt apartheid against black people by the 1990's. Apartheid being gone is a good thing. Now, South Africa still experiences police brutality, economic inequality, and huge hikes in college tuition rates. Students have every right to make their voices heard. Their actions are similar to what college students did in the States during the 1960’s when American students opposed the Vietnam War, wanted black studies in universities, and wanted a more progressive educational environment. Also, in South Africa, the ANC has become more neoliberal and bourgeois. Once, tons of ANC members fought apartheid in legitimate confrontation decades ago. Now, many ANC leaders are allies of the same capitalist forces that continue to economically exploit the region. South African students and the EFF should be commended for their courage and for their activism in fighting back against massive tuition hikes. Students experiencing tear gas and other form of oppression by some of the police is unjust. A few years ago, the Marikana massacre in South Africa was when cops killed black striking workers. Soweto was about kids being shot and killed by apartheid forces. I wish the best for the movement and women should be given credit in leading this movement for social change. South Africans are always filled with conscious-filled, courageous human beings. We want South Africa to be filled with justice and the student activists are showing the world how real activism is done.
RIP Lilian Ngoyi
RIP Nelson Mandela
#FeesMustFall.
By Timothy
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Political News
It is inevitable for Joe Biden to say the words that he has sad. First, we all send condolences to him and to the rest of his family. A family losing a son is very sad and they should be given the space to mourn. After this, it seems that the race for the Democrats is between Hillary and Sanders primarily. O'Malley is running, but he hasn't made a massive move in the polls. Yes, Hillary will give a testimony on Benghazi tomorrow. Benghazi for years has been a stronghold of Al-Qaeda forces. Also, Benghazi was a place where the CIA had covert operations. The Benghazi attack was done (by radicals) in the compound and in a CIA annex. I don't believe that Hillary used a stand down order in Benghazi or anything of that nature. Yet, I do disagree with her militarist policies. This Presidential election is certainly unique. Joe Biden wants to support the legacy of the Presidency of President Barack Obama. There are many people who want to channel dissent in the Democratic Party. I don’t agree with that since we have to maintain and express political independence. That means that we are not Democrats or Republicans. We are independently minded human beings. We don’t support it when both major parties have supported militarization of the local police, austerity, militarism, and other evils. We know that the same ones who promote war abroad advance social inequality domestically in the form of stagnant wages, high economic inequality, etc. So, we must have a class analysis in order to fight against police violence, etc. We must oppose racism and advance racial justice if we are to be free indeed. We know that the GOP is filled with xenophobes, racists, sexists, Islamophobes, etc. The comments from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and other GOP candidates are deplorable. Yet, we also must be wise to note support Democrats who want more war in Syria, who want more austerity, and want the status quo. We want liberation.
Howard’s words of propaganda represent the new generation of the misogynists. Many misogynists will use slick means to advance their agendas. Yet, they try to blame a female leader as a way for them to use the guise of "defending males" (when they don’t). They claim to defend males, but their ideologies ignore how there is a massive gender gap among men and women. People like Howard certainly ignore the epidemic of the abuse of girls and women. The truth is that sexism is a serious global problem. The First Lady Michelle Obama doesn’t believe in misandry and she has always respected strong men who are doing the right thing. First Lady Michelle Obama has promoted the Let’s Move campaign which is about the promotion of exercise among boys and girls. She has promoted many educational programs in trying to help boys and girls. Also, Howard needs to know that all of the girls haven’t been rescued from the hands of Boko Haram. Also, the First Lady and any reasonable person deplore Boko Haram murdering boys or anyone else. So, his words are filled with deceptions and distortions of what the First Lady is talking about. There is nothing wrong with programs helping girls. Organizations geared to boys have always existed for a very long time. One program geared to girls shouldn’t be slandered as somehow anti-male. Howard’s words are dishonest, distracting, and blatantly wrong. He knows full well that programs exist that are geared to males and he ignores how male privilege and misogyny are realities in the world (not just in Western societies).
Anyone who burned the churches in St. Louis and in its surrounding areas should be brought to justice. Damage done to religious buildings is cowardly, cruel, and blatantly evil. Racism is still found in St. Louis. Some areas of the Midwest are known for vicious bigotry and hate. Yet, racism is not just a Midwestern problem. Racism and vandalism or the burning of religious locations are worldwide problems. Black folks fought the restrictive resident covenants of the 20th century in order for housing rights to be maintained. We see how the effects of suburbanization and deindustrialization have affected St. Louis in many ways. Also, St. Louis is known for strong black people who stood up for justice then and now. Therefore, security measures should be implemented in religious locations around the area. I have no problem with patrols around the churches which are organized and led by community leaders. Cameras placed on the churches is something that I agree with too. Also, the federal government (not just the state and local governments) should be involved with this. This is a federal problem. This story cements the quintessential truth that we don’t live in a colorblind society. The burning of churches should never be tolerated at all. There is nothing wrong with someone being a virgin before they marry someone else. Yet, there is a problem with some individuals who want to use sex to promote a patriarchal agenda of control or some want to promote the myth that being a virgin means that this person is superior to another human being who is not a virgin. The certificate is creepy when you think about it. The father supports this action. To assume that the composition of the hymen proves virginity is silliness to be frank (and I’m being kind here). Marriage is a very important event. Both the bride and the groom can celebrate their occasion without that weird certificate. Even the NT mentions information about discouraging people to display what they do in an arrogant or prideful way in public. There has been a great over saturation of people’s personal business in social media like in IG, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Folks don't have to show all of their business in order to validate their existence in the world. The most important point is that a woman, who is a virgin or not, should not be degraded, should not be shammed unfairly, and should have the total human rights that any human being should have by birthright. When we promote liberation to women, we mean it. We mean that equality and human autonomy are not just words. These concepts should be a way of life (and we fight for these principles every single day).
Certainly, the fight for change involve many steps, revolutionary actions, and focus. The actions of Ava Duvernay will further inspire girls and women that they can express themselves and that they have every right to be liberated, to be independent, and to think creatively. We are against gender discrimination and the wage disparities between men and women. We are in favor in living in a society where there is not only the elimination of discrimination. We want to live in a world where justice exists for all. Ava Duvernay is known not only to be involved in the film industry. She has worked in her community and she is continuing to plan more things in her future endeavors. The struggle for freedom will continue. It is important to not only praise excellence in our people. It is also vital for us to use our power to help others, because someone along the way helped us.
This story is very important. It shows that children should be involved in STEM fields. Also, this story shows the resilience of Ahmed Mohamed. Ahmed has gone through a lot, but I am certain that his future will be better than the past or the present. The kid is a genius. His father talked about his great technological abilities. He had told Larry Wilmore that he has built more complex items.
We should always encourage the youth and others to fulfill their dreams and to have a strong, passionate love of learning. Here are the facts. Mohamed said that students and staff member of his middle school bullied him. One suspension was overturned. Mohamed said that he was interrogated before he was arrested and he wasn’t allowed to contact his family. He was later not charged with a crime and the police even determined that he had no malicious intent. For some to claim that Ahmed was some terrorist is the height of ignorance, bigotry, and Islamophobia. Not all people with a Middle Eastern background is a terrorist. People will report things, but folks' human rights shouldn't be circumvented either. We have a problem in America with people who want to exaggerate incidents or exploit prejudices in this nation as an excuse for some to promote a climate of fear, hatred, and Islamophobia. Real people don’t believe that Ahmed Mohamed is a direct threat. The police can easily investigated the clock, and let him go. Yet, Ahmed was arrested and suffered an ordeal that no child should suffer. The police overacted. Yes, I’m going to go there. We wish Ahmed the best in his homeschooling. Ahmed has a very inquisitive mind and he should be encouraged to follow his dreams.
By Timothy
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
Important Articles
http://www.blackcommentator.com/
http://www.blackcommentator.com/155/155_cover_mmm.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/169/169_street_mlk_democratic_socialist.html
http://blackcommentator.com/609/609_sanders_critique_robertson_leumer_guests.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/416/416_whm_septima_clark_allen_taylor_guest_share.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/155/155_cover_mmm.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/169/169_street_mlk_democratic_socialist.html
http://blackcommentator.com/609/609_sanders_critique_robertson_leumer_guests.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/416/416_whm_septima_clark_allen_taylor_guest_share.html
Late October 2015 News
There was the October 10, 2015 double suicide bombing in Ankara or the capital of Turkey. Before the bombings, protesters were singing in a peace march. Over 100 people were killed. Yet, this hasn’t stopped the peace movement in Turkey at all. The burial ceremonies of the victims of the Ankara bombings have become anti-government rallies. Thousands of mourners chanted “Murderer Erdoğan” and “The murderous state will he held to account.” Erdogan is known for his reactionary policies in Turkey ad in other nations. There was a strike in October 12 and 13. The strike was headed via an alliance of labor unions which are affiliated to the main opposition parties including the professional organizations. There were tens of thousands of medical staff, teaches, municipal employees, and lawyers who struck. Many university students boycotted their lessons in some faculties. The action was taken by the Confederation of Progressive Workers’ Unions (DISK), the Confederation of Public Laborers’ Union (KESK), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), and the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) took part in the action. The AKP or the Justice and Development Party have increased its pressure on the media. They have mobilized the police to try to suppress the tide of opposition. The government has used the government to try to limit protest rallies. On Tuesday, the Istanbul Governor’s Office refused to grant permission for the proposed march from Sirkeci and Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty to Beyazıt Square, saying, “The governorate does not find the planned march and rally appropriate, regarding the sensitivity of the present period.” In other parts of Istanbul, riot police brutally attacked those who defied the ban. Also on Wednesday, an Ankara court issued a broad media ban on reporting on the Ankara suicide bomber investigation. According to Hürriyet Daily News, the ban includes “all kinds of news, interviews, criticism and similar publications in print, visual, social media and all kinds of media on the Internet.” The general strikes have been supported by many Kurdish activist groups. The larger trade unions like the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions are more moderate and support the government. The Turkish government has arrested 2 suspects. Their names are Yunus Emre Alagoz, the brother of a bomber who killed 33 people in a separate suicide blast in Suruc in July, also said to be linked to IS. The other bomber was identified as Omer Deniz Dundar, using DNA from the blast. The two were reportedly on a list of 21 potential suicide bombers. Some believe that the attack was most likely the work of ISIS. .Turkey still abhors PKK in calling it a terrorist group as has been said by Turkish leader Davutoğlu. The YPG or the People’s Protection Units is the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is an ally of the PKK. The ruling party of Erdogan is the justice and Development Party or the AKP. A YPG statement, sent to Reuters on Monday, says, “The sensitive stage our country Syria is going through and rapid developments on the military and political front...require that there be a united national military force for all Syrians, joining Kurds, Arabs, Syrians and other groups.” The Kurds have made many gains in the Middle East.
The neoconservatives have been discredited in their views on Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Ukraine. The truth is that supporting fascists or using color revolutions which destabilize nations will not end terrorism neither will it form democratic solutions to problems. Today, we not only have reactionary Republicans promoting more war. We have many Democratic war mongers who use “humanitarianism” as justification to want to put U.S. ground forces in Syria or support the Saudi destruction of Yemen. Even Secretary of State John Kerry said that: “Will we need to put enables on the ground? I think so. The President hasn’t made the decision yet.” US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has been consistently anti-Crimea in her views. Power refused to condemn the shelling of the Russian Embassy in Damascus in the midst of her supporting terrorist groups in Syria, who are supported by the CIA. The President conceded to an open ended commitment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This came as a product of pressure from Defense Ashton Carter and other neo-cons. The Russians have a new electronic jamming system, which can blind radar, disrupt electronic guidance systems, and interfere with satellite imagery as well. There is the Russian Richag-AV system, which is a system that can jam radar, sonar, and other detection systems (in the midst of defending aircraft, helicopters, drones, etc.). NATO supreme commander and U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove said that Russia was created an A2/AD bubble (filled with surface to air missile batteries and anti-ship missiles to defend Syria against ISIS) over the Syrian code. There is the Russian SU-24 fighter, which blinded the Aegis radar on US destroyer in the Black Sea and knocked out guidance for Tomahawk cruise missiles on April 10, 2014. NATO continues to show drills in Eastern Europe and we certainly experiencing a complex situation in Syria.
The current 2016 Presidential election is filled with immigrant bashing, populism, and war mongering promotion. We are in a new era. We are in over one year after the rebellion of Ferguson. The 2 major parties of American capitalism are showing their views. We know that the Republican debates are filled with racist reactionary views, and a competition on who is the most pro-corporate candidate. Donald Trump believes in the fiction that building a border wall and immediately deporting people will cause justice when those actions won’t. Carly Fiorina has fired 30,000 employees of Hewlett-Packard during her time as chief executive. We have the candidacy of Ben Carson and Carson has made many bad statements which are Islampohobic, he compared the ACA to slavery (which is evil and wrong), and he talked about the Holocaust in an offensive way. The Democrats have many candidates too. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley are the most popular candidates. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee are in the Democratic side as well. The Democratic candidates said that they are “progressives” as they promote more escalation of the Western war machine to response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Sanders want to fund the Saudis to fight ISIS while Clinton wants to drop U.S. bombs on Assad and she says that a no fly zone is not off the table. Clinton is a capitalist. The Wall banks fund both parties and many corporate heads are the enemies of the poor and the working class. Our rights are being violated constantly. Sandra Bland died after she was harshly treated by the police. Even the tennis star James Black was brutally tackled outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel for just standing (Black was not asked of why he was tackled initially and he was no threat to the cops at all). On September 24, Jeremy McDole was cut down in a hail of at least ten bullets by police in Wilmington, Delaware for “sitting while black” ... in a wheelchair. Donald Trump is a person who calls Mexican undocumented workers criminals, drug dealers, and rapists, which is evil. Hillary Clinton is pro-war, pro-death penalty, and she had many contentious discussions with Black Lives Matter activists. Bernie Sanders’ campaign deals with practically capitalism (he claims to be a social democratic person, but imperialism is not related to socialism) with a slightly higher social welfare budget. His racial justice platform is very detailed, but community policing is a token action that doesn’t address the capitalist sate repression. Right now, Democrats Sanders and Hillary are trying to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement when the Democrats have promoted gentrification, corporate exploitation, closing schools, and other reactionary policies for decades (just like the Republicans have done). We know that at least 2 members of the BLM are members of the TFA or the Teach for America group. This TFA group is union busting organization and it is funded by Wall Street backers to replace public schools to create private profit. Likewise, it is important to note that tons of BLM members are independently minded, are fighting for justice, and are doing great work. I want to make that perfectly clear. There should be a program to end racial oppression by ending capitalist exploitation. So, we need to have revolutionary politics and revolutionary actions in liberating black people including the rest of the human race.
The problem is that this issue has been placed under the rug by some for so long. One truth is that we should never worship false idols and the Ebony cover just told the truth that we must have a conversation on abuse, rape, and the mistreatment of women. I don’t see how anyone can be angry at Mayo for this in my view. Many of the same ones angry at the cover are not angry at the abuse of women, some of them aren’t angry at the epidemic of the abuse of black lives, and some of them aren’t angry at how respectability politics (or the view that there is some formula of being acceptable to mainstream token mores and act in a certain fashion in order for black people to be free or to not experience racism. We know that to be fantasy) has distorted what real liberation is all about. We don't need victim blaming. We need self-determination and activism in order for us to solve our problems. We want to have the conversation, the healing, and the usage of action in ending evils. One part of the solution is to confront evils. Kierna Mayo has done a great job in talking about this issue. Some people are arguing over a magazine cover when our people are being murdered and discriminated against. Some folks have to get their priorities straight. The system of white supremacy is very brutal. Therefore, the young Brothers and Sisters have every right to have the Knowledge of Self so they are equipped to deal with the issues of life. There is no solution to liberate black people unless we know who we are, we have to know the condition that we are in, we have to know why we exist in this condition in the first place, and we have to act (involving many actions like developing political, economic, and social unity as a community in order for us to independently achieve our own destinies). Some black people will wake up and others will not. We are the first humans on Earth and we will fight for justice.
I have read many articles where many Afro-British people admit that many African Americans are black identified or want to show an overt emphasis on being Black. The Black Power movement of the 1960’s (filled with the Black Panther Party, DRUM, etc.) didn’t exist out of thin air. It existed, because people want to counteract the lie that whiteness is the goal that we should aspire to be. We should aspire to love ourselves and love our black people. Many of us black Americans love our Blackness and are rather overt in promoting our interests as black people. I read where many Latin American nations have dozens of classifications of race. In America, we have dealt with slavery, Jim Crow, and other events that showed us how evil white racism is. There is also a strong Afro-Brazilian movement in Brazil. One hero of Brazil is Benedita Da Silva, who is one of the greatest political activists in the Americas of our generation. The white supremacists act globally in trying to show lies and propaganda against our people. That is why I do research about the African Diaspora and I support Diaspora groups who want liberation for black people. Certainly, music back then was very rich in not only harmonies, but in content. Marvin Gaye's "What Going on" was ahead of its time including the songs from Gil Scott Heron. The lyrics of the song by Usher and Nas certainly want people to do something about blatant injustices against innocent people. Usher's music appeals to a wide spectrum of people and it is fair to ask the question about his fan base. Music readily is a reflection of the times or the social barometer of the conditions of society. We want more musicians to talk about these important subjects. There is nothing wrong with entertaining music at times, but much of the mainstream music today is very imbalanced and many folks showing music aren't really talented at all. More progressive messages about breaking chains and having liberation are needed in our generation. There are freedom fighters globally who are opposed to tyranny. Our Blackness is very powerful. Black resistance to evil is always holy. Yes, Black is Beautiful.
By Timothy
The neoconservatives have been discredited in their views on Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Ukraine. The truth is that supporting fascists or using color revolutions which destabilize nations will not end terrorism neither will it form democratic solutions to problems. Today, we not only have reactionary Republicans promoting more war. We have many Democratic war mongers who use “humanitarianism” as justification to want to put U.S. ground forces in Syria or support the Saudi destruction of Yemen. Even Secretary of State John Kerry said that: “Will we need to put enables on the ground? I think so. The President hasn’t made the decision yet.” US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has been consistently anti-Crimea in her views. Power refused to condemn the shelling of the Russian Embassy in Damascus in the midst of her supporting terrorist groups in Syria, who are supported by the CIA. The President conceded to an open ended commitment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This came as a product of pressure from Defense Ashton Carter and other neo-cons. The Russians have a new electronic jamming system, which can blind radar, disrupt electronic guidance systems, and interfere with satellite imagery as well. There is the Russian Richag-AV system, which is a system that can jam radar, sonar, and other detection systems (in the midst of defending aircraft, helicopters, drones, etc.). NATO supreme commander and U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove said that Russia was created an A2/AD bubble (filled with surface to air missile batteries and anti-ship missiles to defend Syria against ISIS) over the Syrian code. There is the Russian SU-24 fighter, which blinded the Aegis radar on US destroyer in the Black Sea and knocked out guidance for Tomahawk cruise missiles on April 10, 2014. NATO continues to show drills in Eastern Europe and we certainly experiencing a complex situation in Syria.
The current 2016 Presidential election is filled with immigrant bashing, populism, and war mongering promotion. We are in a new era. We are in over one year after the rebellion of Ferguson. The 2 major parties of American capitalism are showing their views. We know that the Republican debates are filled with racist reactionary views, and a competition on who is the most pro-corporate candidate. Donald Trump believes in the fiction that building a border wall and immediately deporting people will cause justice when those actions won’t. Carly Fiorina has fired 30,000 employees of Hewlett-Packard during her time as chief executive. We have the candidacy of Ben Carson and Carson has made many bad statements which are Islampohobic, he compared the ACA to slavery (which is evil and wrong), and he talked about the Holocaust in an offensive way. The Democrats have many candidates too. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley are the most popular candidates. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee are in the Democratic side as well. The Democratic candidates said that they are “progressives” as they promote more escalation of the Western war machine to response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Sanders want to fund the Saudis to fight ISIS while Clinton wants to drop U.S. bombs on Assad and she says that a no fly zone is not off the table. Clinton is a capitalist. The Wall banks fund both parties and many corporate heads are the enemies of the poor and the working class. Our rights are being violated constantly. Sandra Bland died after she was harshly treated by the police. Even the tennis star James Black was brutally tackled outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel for just standing (Black was not asked of why he was tackled initially and he was no threat to the cops at all). On September 24, Jeremy McDole was cut down in a hail of at least ten bullets by police in Wilmington, Delaware for “sitting while black” ... in a wheelchair. Donald Trump is a person who calls Mexican undocumented workers criminals, drug dealers, and rapists, which is evil. Hillary Clinton is pro-war, pro-death penalty, and she had many contentious discussions with Black Lives Matter activists. Bernie Sanders’ campaign deals with practically capitalism (he claims to be a social democratic person, but imperialism is not related to socialism) with a slightly higher social welfare budget. His racial justice platform is very detailed, but community policing is a token action that doesn’t address the capitalist sate repression. Right now, Democrats Sanders and Hillary are trying to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement when the Democrats have promoted gentrification, corporate exploitation, closing schools, and other reactionary policies for decades (just like the Republicans have done). We know that at least 2 members of the BLM are members of the TFA or the Teach for America group. This TFA group is union busting organization and it is funded by Wall Street backers to replace public schools to create private profit. Likewise, it is important to note that tons of BLM members are independently minded, are fighting for justice, and are doing great work. I want to make that perfectly clear. There should be a program to end racial oppression by ending capitalist exploitation. So, we need to have revolutionary politics and revolutionary actions in liberating black people including the rest of the human race.
The problem is that this issue has been placed under the rug by some for so long. One truth is that we should never worship false idols and the Ebony cover just told the truth that we must have a conversation on abuse, rape, and the mistreatment of women. I don’t see how anyone can be angry at Mayo for this in my view. Many of the same ones angry at the cover are not angry at the abuse of women, some of them aren’t angry at the epidemic of the abuse of black lives, and some of them aren’t angry at how respectability politics (or the view that there is some formula of being acceptable to mainstream token mores and act in a certain fashion in order for black people to be free or to not experience racism. We know that to be fantasy) has distorted what real liberation is all about. We don't need victim blaming. We need self-determination and activism in order for us to solve our problems. We want to have the conversation, the healing, and the usage of action in ending evils. One part of the solution is to confront evils. Kierna Mayo has done a great job in talking about this issue. Some people are arguing over a magazine cover when our people are being murdered and discriminated against. Some folks have to get their priorities straight. The system of white supremacy is very brutal. Therefore, the young Brothers and Sisters have every right to have the Knowledge of Self so they are equipped to deal with the issues of life. There is no solution to liberate black people unless we know who we are, we have to know the condition that we are in, we have to know why we exist in this condition in the first place, and we have to act (involving many actions like developing political, economic, and social unity as a community in order for us to independently achieve our own destinies). Some black people will wake up and others will not. We are the first humans on Earth and we will fight for justice.
I have read many articles where many Afro-British people admit that many African Americans are black identified or want to show an overt emphasis on being Black. The Black Power movement of the 1960’s (filled with the Black Panther Party, DRUM, etc.) didn’t exist out of thin air. It existed, because people want to counteract the lie that whiteness is the goal that we should aspire to be. We should aspire to love ourselves and love our black people. Many of us black Americans love our Blackness and are rather overt in promoting our interests as black people. I read where many Latin American nations have dozens of classifications of race. In America, we have dealt with slavery, Jim Crow, and other events that showed us how evil white racism is. There is also a strong Afro-Brazilian movement in Brazil. One hero of Brazil is Benedita Da Silva, who is one of the greatest political activists in the Americas of our generation. The white supremacists act globally in trying to show lies and propaganda against our people. That is why I do research about the African Diaspora and I support Diaspora groups who want liberation for black people. Certainly, music back then was very rich in not only harmonies, but in content. Marvin Gaye's "What Going on" was ahead of its time including the songs from Gil Scott Heron. The lyrics of the song by Usher and Nas certainly want people to do something about blatant injustices against innocent people. Usher's music appeals to a wide spectrum of people and it is fair to ask the question about his fan base. Music readily is a reflection of the times or the social barometer of the conditions of society. We want more musicians to talk about these important subjects. There is nothing wrong with entertaining music at times, but much of the mainstream music today is very imbalanced and many folks showing music aren't really talented at all. More progressive messages about breaking chains and having liberation are needed in our generation. There are freedom fighters globally who are opposed to tyranny. Our Blackness is very powerful. Black resistance to evil is always holy. Yes, Black is Beautiful.
By Timothy