More Information in the Fall of 2014

That experience wouldn't give him authority on King, especially not on King's social and political philosophy. It wouldn't verify his CLAIMS that King was conservative (if that's his view). At any rate, people from East Baltimore who grew up in the time of King do not all think in the same way. How has Marcus' views any more authority than that others who grew up in aast Baltimore at the same time?(By the way, I encountered VERY FEW Blacks in east Bmore who believed that ALL of the problems of Black America were caused by "whitey". I think it's a MYTH that most Black people think that. They do believe--CORRECTLY--that a large part of the problem is rooted in racism and economic injustice) As regarding King's philosophy, has honestly studied it? Or does he simply pick words or phrases that suit him to make his point. I can cherry pick comments from speeches or writings of some Marxists or Anarchists, or revolutionary Blacks like some 1960s Black Panthers. Overwhelmingly, King was a PROGRESSIVE.

 -Savant

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There's something I've been thinking about that may be (or may not be) wholly impractical. The idea of Federation. I seem to recall Huey Newton---after the BPP abandoned "revolutionary nationalism" for "revolutionar y intercommunalism "--suggested some kind of intercommunal federation of Jews and Palestinians. Only problem is that it seems to imply the moving away from ideas of either a Jewish or Palestinian state. Neither would agree. The federation---prefe rably socialist, according to Newton--would encompas Jewish and Arab communities, but with regional autonomy and equal RIGHTS written into a new democratic constitution. There would be (if I understood him correctly) no prohibition of either Jew or Palestinians traveling outside his respective Jewish or Palestinian region, but there would be self-governance in each group in each region. Honestly, I don't know that it would work given all the bloodletting that has already happened. But if a significant number of both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs could agree on this, and on the particulars of how to go about it, it might be worthwhile. And in fifty years or more descendants of both Jews and Arabs would look back on their bloody past and wonder: "How could this be? How could our ancestors treat each other that way?" Oh well....maybe just a dream....a liberated federation of free Jewish and Arab peoples. But as John Lennon put, "Imagine! "



 -Savant

Political Information

Nixak.77* • 5 days ago

Chris Hedges being Chris Hedges, did NOT bite his tongue about the duplicity of the Corp DLC Billary-Gore / Obama-Kerry Dims vis-a-vis the working-class / working-poor, green & anti-war movements. I was even a bit surprised at how strongly Hedges talked about the need to over-throw the current Corp Wall St Bankster controlled 2 party corpora-stocracy via revolution & mass-resistance. Although Naomi Klein alluded to it, Mr Hedges spelled it out that it was Billary & Gore that passed NAFTA [that they inherited as a 'to-do' from Bush Sr] w support from Newt Grinch-witch's Repug controlled congress. Needless to say NAFTA was / is both bad for workers both in the US, Mexico & Haiti & bad for the environment. So now Obama's pushing for NAFTA on steroids w the TPP & TAFTA! IMO Obama's been 'toying' w Bill McKibben re: the KXL, cause he's know there're other ways around it, via tar-sands oil trains & gas-fracking. And know for sure that tar-sands & deep-sea oil, gas-fracking & also much of the mountain-top blasted coal ain't really about so-called US 'energy security'- caused much / most of that dirty energy is ear-marked to be exported to over-seas markets.

PS: Also note that it was Billary & Gore that paved to way for GMO's [FYI: Mr {'Green-Jeans'} Gore even featured bio-tech {aka GMO technology} as a key part of his proposed economic agenda during his 2000 POTUS bid].

Ms Sawant being the socialist she is, echoed much of what Hedges said, & also talked about the need of public control of corporations & vital resources, & offered her socialist party as an alternative to the Dims.

Ms Sawant's coy ploy re Bernie Sanders was a bit amusing- Basically she tried to bait Bernie to commit to run for POTUS [if he indeed does run] as a independent & sever his ties to the [DLC Corp] Dims, & she would likely back him [Bernie kind of bobbed, weaved & ducked that one]. IMO it's note-worthy that Ms Sawant & Hedges got the biggest applause.

Naomi Klein also critiqued Disaster Corp Capitalism as the root of the global environmental & also the economic crisis. Ms Klein being Canadian stayed out of US {bi}Partisan 'poly-trickal' finger-pointing, but IMO the moderator did her & the audience a bit of a disservice by cutting her off as she was making a key point.

Bill McKibben started right off 'brown-nosing' Bernie Sanders by 'encouraging' [hyping] a potential Sanders' POTUS bid, as if Sanders is going to be any better than Obama & the Billary Clintons [I doubt it- especially if he runs as a Dim]. McKibben blamed the Koch Bros & the Repugs for the 'climate-crisis', studiously avoiding any serious critique of corp Dims- in other words stale anti-Repug {= pro Dim} political bashing.

And Bill- There's more to renewable energy than wind & solar- IE: tidal power, geothermal, bio-gas digesters, etc; as well as increase energy conservation & energy efficiency- including up-graded & very strategically expanded mass-transit [entails incentivizing folks to park &/or move-away from private cars]. And when will any-one talk about the need to transition away from the SAD meat-based & towards a more plant based diet, as a key to reversing environmental degradation [as well as improving both private as well as public health]?

> Bernie Sanders kicked-off this trite / SOS anti-Repug {= pro Dim} political bashing- which McKibben picked-up on. Sanders then danced all around the issue of whether- if he runs for POTUS- will he do so as an independent 3rd party candidate. After all Bernie, the Green-Party still exists. So if you run as a 'Green', IMO you'll likely get the backing of Ms Sawant, Hedges, Nader & many more. But IMO Bernie doesn't really believe he can win as a Green [nor as some other independent 3rd party] = his excuse to run as a 'liberal' Dim to the 'left' of Billary / Killary - which IMO is NO real challenge for anyone except a hard-core Repug.

The 2 best questions which put Sanders & McKibben on the Spot: Bernie talked about working people, health-care, etc, but failed to talk about the US' hugely bloated military / para-military / surveillance-state budget that nearly = the rest of the World's combined. The DoD is by far the USG's main gas-guzzler- consuming 93% of the USG's total fuel allotment = to Nigeria's- Africa's most populous country & an original OPEC member.

Note: Bernie did NOT say he was against bombing in Iraq & Syria, he said he was against US boots on the ground & the US acting alone without a 'Coalition of the Willing'. IMO w that Bernie sounds too d___ much like so-called 'anti-war candidate' Obama's quip: 'I'm not against all wars, just dumb ones'.

- And uhm Bill- When the guy asked about more people of color being involved in this 'green'-movement, IMO he was talking about from the US- NOT in Africa, Latin America & Asia! Uhm Bill, that may have been a pertinent answer if you had Africans, Latin Americans &/or Asians [Ms Sawant not with-standing] on the panel or at-least in the audience, &/or in the fore-front of [organizing] this 'climate-march'.


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Nixak.77* • 31 minutes ago

It's a 'red-herring' that guy's like Sam, have pulled since the Bush / Cheney / Neo-CON{men} Iraq Attack- If you disagree w their illegal wars based on LIES, then you must be for their 'Evil Dictator De-Jour'- IE: Saddam, Khadaffi, now Assad [& lets not forget Noriega- who had Mr CIA Bush Sr as his CIA pay-master]. Of course, as you've alluded to, the CIA backed Saddam's brutal rise to power by over-throwing a more 'democratic' state in Iraq pre-Saddam. And then there's 'Rummy' Rumsfeld handshake w Saddam to seal a Ronnie Ray-gun / Mr CIA Bush Sr backed deal that sold Saddam Toxic gas & logistical support vs the Iranians during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. Just a couple of yrs before UK-US NATO's ruthless & relentless bombing assault on Libya, all the heads of state at the fore-front of UK-US NATO were shaking hands w & grinning all in Khadaffi's face- apparently vying for a bigger cut of Libya's sweet-crude. In just 2009 Lurch Botox Kerry & his Heinz Ketchup wife were Assad's exclusive dinner guests. Just 2 yrs later Kerry was calling Assad a mad evil dictator. The sheer HYPOCRISY [& ruthless brutality] of these guys is without limits!!!

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Nixak.77* • 8 days ago

NO Demands, NO Agenda, Plus Wall St Banksters & even Oil Corps will be part of this so-called 'Climate March'- Humm... Sounds like a BIG PHOTO OP-- Which Wall St Banksters & Oil Corps will use to 'green-wash' themselves!!!! And just whose idea was it to include Wall St Banksters & Chevron??! Sound$ like they've been co-opted!!!

From CounterPunch: How the People’s Climate March Became a Corporate PR Campaign

[@ www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/1... ]:} 'I’ve [the author Arun Gupta] never been to a protest march that advertised in the New York City subway. That spent $220,000 on posters inviting Wall Street bankers to join a march to save the planet. That claims you can change world history in an afternoon after walking the dog and eating brunch.

To quote Han Solo, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Encouraging bankers to a climate-change march is like saying Blackwater mercenaries should join an antiwar protest.

Having worked on Madison Ave for a decade, I can smell a PR marketing campaign a mile away. That’s what the People’s Climate March seems to be. According to inside sources a push early on for a Seattle-style event—organizing thousands of people to nonviolently shut down the area around the United Nations—was thwarted by paid staff with the organizing groups.

Branding. That’s how the climate crisis is going to be solved [NOT!]. We are in an era or postmodern social movements.

The image (not ideology) comes first and shapes the reality. PR & marketing determines the tactics, the messaging, the organizing, and the strategy.

The organizers will lead the movement into the graveyard of the Democratic Party, just like the movement against the Iraq War a decade ago. Thus Obama has now launched an 8th war and yet there is NO antiwar movement to speak of.

Avaaz and [Bill McKibben's] 350.org is footing most of the bill for the People’s Climate March with millions of dollars spent.

When the overriding demand is for numbers, which is about visuals & PR marketing, everything becomes lowest common denominator. Thus the lack of politics IS a Political Decision.

Avaaz has turned social justice into a product to enhance the liberal do-gooding lifestyle, and it’s set its sights on the climate justice movement.

Naomi Klein says we need to end business as usual because climate change is going to change everything. Unfortunately the organizers of the People’s Climate March didn’t get the memo. Because they are continuing on with business as usual that won’t change anything...' {

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Nixak.77* • 9 days ago

Though it's true by absolute numbers, there are more poor whites, mainly concentrated in the south, than poor Blacks mainly concentrated in northern urban cities. Yet the south is the traditional bastion of the KKK / FOX Noise type 'Good Ole Boys' politicians [first Dixie-crat Dims but since the era of 'Tricky Dick's' 'southern strategy'- now Repugs]. Southern 'Good Ole Boy' politicians have traditionally played the 'racism-card' to get so many poor & working class whites [even some in the north] to act against their own best class-interests.

Note this excerpt from DN! [@ www.democracynow.org/blog/2014... ] - MICHELLE ALEXANDER:} 'The system of mass incarceration stems from an effort to divide poor people along racial lines, to keep them divided and distracted. It is in many ways a backlash against the poor people’s movement and the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King launched. I describe in my book ['The New Jim Crow'], the get-tough movement in the war on drugs was part of a deliberate strategy adopted by the Republican Party [w complicity from the Dims] in an effort to appeal to poor and working-class white voters who were anxious about, threatened by many of the gains that were made by African Americans in the civil rights movement. And pollsters and political strategists found that get-tough rhetoric on issues of crime and welfare could appeal to poor and working-class whites and pit poor and working-class whites against poor folks of color.' {

Yet 'ironically' the main beneficiaries of the US' welfare system traditionally have been poor white mothers & their kids. Just as the main beneficiaries of affirmative action progs have also been white women. The Elites have always resented FDR's New Deal's welfare progs, even though it was mainly for white working class & poor people & was initially designed to exclude most Black workers. It was during the Civil Rights era, when these programs were expanded to include more Black people, that 'welfare' was spun into a 'bad word / talking point', & the power elites got so many working class & poor whites on-board w dismantling many of these New Deal Progs that FDR initially created to mainly help working-class & poor whites - because these programs were cynically 'spun' into / described as so-called 'Reparations' for Blacks- WOW!!!

The Racial code-words 'reparations' &/or 'socialism' to describe programs that likely would help ALL working class / working poor people [of ALL colors & back-grounds] is the favorite 'race-card' cynical politicians like 'to play' on so many working class & poor whites- who so many unfortunately buy into it.

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Nixak.77* • 17 days ago

NYC, Feb 1965: The guy kneeling over a dying Malcolm X, Gene Roberts [a Malcolm body-guard], turned out to be a NYPD BOSS [Bureau of 'Special Services'] under-cover cop. The guy IDed as the shot-gun man during Malcolm's assassination [IE: 1 of the 5 Malcolm assassins] was seen by a witness walking in & out of an office in a nearby NYPD station- Without Escort & NOT in Handcuffs.

FYI: Turns out that of the 3 guys convicted for Malcolm's murder, 2 of them where NOT even there.

Memphis, April 4th 1968 [exactly 1 yr to the day after MLK gave his iconic anti Vietnam War speech]: The first to reach a dying MLK was a Memphis PD under-cover cop, Merrel McCullough, who later joined the CIA. In the 1999 civil trial: The King Family vs Loyd Jowers, Jowers named McCullough as one of his co-conspirators in the plot to assassinate MLK [Note: James Earl Ray was NOT named as a co-conspirator].

Chicago, Dec 4th 1969: The head of BPP's Chicago Chapter, Fred Hampton, is executed in his bed while sound asleep [he was drugged] in a joint FBI, Chicago PD, County Sheriff [= COINTELPRO] raid. The guy who gave the FBI & Chicago cops a detailed layout of Hampton's apartment, William O'Neal, who was Hampton's security chief [ala Gene Roberts for Malcolm]- was, you guessed it- yet another paid police informant who likely 'spiked' / drugged Hampton's drink just prior to his execution.

In J. Edgar Hoover's infamous 'Stop the Rise of a Black Messiah' memo Hoover specifically named Malcolm, Martin & the Black Panther Party [along w Kwame' Toure' aka Stokley Carmichael] as his main targets to be 'neutralized'.

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IMO likely the most 'revolutionary' act the BPP did was NOT the iconic pix of BPP members in black tams, leather jackets, shouldering rifles which gets the most hype [by the BPP- but even by the FEDs & cops to gin-up 'Mau-Mau' type fear among whites of scary Black dudes out to 'kill whitey' & 'off the pigs']- But rather the BPP's free breakfast prog to feed Black school-kids along w their free medical prog [contrary to this Findley / Ram-boo joker's rants]. Needed programs that Dim poly-tricksters & their approved 'Negro' leaders too often failed to provide [at the time]. Apparently 'Ole J.  Edgar's' COINTELPRO also saw this as just too revolutionary- which explains why so often when cops searched BPP offices across the US, using the guise of searching for illegal weapons- they destroyed &/or confiscated food & medicine ear-marked for the BPP's free breakfast & medical progs- along w printing equipment & supplies.

The other 'revolutionary' act the BPP tried to do that does NOT get enough attention, was the BPP's efforts to try to quell gang conflict both on the streets & in prison. The COINTELPRO response- was to use In-Filth-Traitor agent-provocateurs to 'ironically' stir-up conflict between the BPP & street-gangs; or to fabricate bogus charges against BPP members in jail & throw them in solitary for decades on end- like what happened to TRNN's honored RAI guest, Mr Eddie Conway.

Revolutionary Thinking

From http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TLQHE1MM2T20PAUTB



I sometimes wonder to what use the internet would have been put if it had been around 40--50 years ago when much of America in general, and Black America in particular, was effervescing with revolutionary activity and idealism. At present we mainly get trivial conversation in AA Forum, mostly silly chatter and rumor about dating and interpersonal relations, but rarely matters of great substance.(Of course, interpersonal relations are matters of great importance, but not when chatted up in the silly ways we seen in Topix). Can you imagine to what use an AA Forum would have put in the time of Martin, Malcolm, SNCC and the ORIGINAL Black Panther Party? Can you imagine that in THOSE DAYS a "forum" flooded with chatter like "I don't want to marry a Black man" or "I don't to marry a Black woman"? Of course, in those days IR relations, whatever one opinion of them, were rare and considered at best a side issue---not the MAIN issue Black folk (or progressive non-Black folk) were concerned with. Then the issue was BLACK LIBERATION, social justice, ending the imperialist war in Vietnam, ending poverty, exploitation and racism, and fighting for a new social order. Moreover, in those days the personal and the social were not separated by a great divide. Thus, in their letters Martin and Coretta often discussed their commitment to each other and their people as though both were bound by a seamless web. In love letter between Angela Davis and George Jackson the synthesis of the personal and social were also obvious. And in the film FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS, Angela Davis states that part of the passion between her and George Jackson was due to their capacity to see each other not only as amorous companions but as partners in the struggle to usher in a new world Where are such concerns today? A Poor Peoples Campaign such as Dr. King wanted to organize in spring of 1968 is probably MORE relevant TODAY than in his own time. But TODAY, I hear the poor--especially the Black poor (from whose loins I sprang)--vilified as "ghetto" and "thug trash" even by other Blacks.

The the same people whom Dr. King called "the disinherited children of God." The same folk Malcolm X so proudly identified himself when he said "I'm a FIELD Negro, the masses of our people are field Negroes." Both he and Martin had an undying LOVE for the masses of our people. And in Martin this tended more clearly to encompass the masses of oppressed people of all colors everywhere in the world. Where is the aspiration to build a new world? Can one even IMAGINE any longer a world in whch there is neither rich nor people, in which racial oppression and animosities have ceased, and human beings are no longer divided between rulers and ruled, or between rich and poor? Can we imagine any longer a world at peace?

 -Savant

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 Last semester, after having discussed some of the works of Hegel and Marx and Sartre, I turned to works by Africana thinkers like King, Fanon, Angela Y. Davis. Many students--white, Black and Asian--were simply unaware of King's quest for economic justice, and his critiques of capitalism. Then after a discussion of Angela Davis' "Unfinished Lectures on Liberation," we viewed the film "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners." One young Black man said "Man, we need sisters like Angela TODAY! Where are they?" One Black coed replied "Yes, and we need brothers like some in that film who worked with and supported Angela? Where are they?" I suggested that if they're BOTH about serious business, then they should hook up with other socially conscious students, however many or few, and you will find contemporary equivalents "in your own generation, even if not as famous yet, to the folk we've been discussing." Are there at least a few revolutionary minded folk in AA Forum? -Savant
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 That's one of the reasons I would like a law requiring members of congress to be PHYSICALLY, and visibly present in order to filibuster. I notice reports that Republicans in Congress have even done filibusters in abstentia against the present presidential administrations. And there have been more filibusters during the Obama administration than in any other, at least so I read. Force the doer of the deed to perform before the ideas of the public. -Savant
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 Fanon was in my opinion a brilliant revolutionary Black thinker, writer, and revolutionary humanist. Devoted his life to the liberation of Africa and of oppressed people everywhere. -Savant



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There should be a White History Month in America. That way we can teach all about the things White Americans have done in history, like:

Cherokee Trail of Tears
Japanese American internment
Philippine-American War
Jim Crow
The genocide of Native Americans
Transatlantic slave trade
The Middle Passage
The history of White American racism
Black Codes
Slave patrols
Ku Klux Klan
The War on Drugs
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
How white racism grew out of slavery and genocide
How whites still benefit from slavery and genocide
White anti-racism
The Southern strategy
The rape of black slave women
CORE
Madison Grant
The Indian Wars
Human zoos
How the Jews became white
White flight
Redlining
Proposition 14
Homestead Act
Tulsa Riots
Rosewood massacre
Tuskegee Experiment
Lynching
Hollywood stereotypes
Indian Appropriations Acts
Immigration Act of 1924
Sundown towns
Chinese Exclusion Act
Emmett Till
Vincent Chin
Islamophobia
Indian boarding schools
King Philip’s War
Bacon’s Rebellion
American slavery compared to Arab, Roman and Latin American slavery
History of the gun
History of the police
History of prisons
History of white suburbia
Lincoln’s racism and anti-racism
George Wallace
Fox News
Cointelpro
Real estate steering
School tracking
Mass incarceration of black men
Boston school busing riots

-Holip sism

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I`m glad to see all these racist comments from Alex Jones drones.Because it lets black people know how much of this patriot movement feels about them,and that its not wise to join these racist patriot movements.Blacks joining the patriot movement will do nothing but distract blacks from the issues in their communities,which is gonna help maintain systematic white supremacy.And the patriot movement is run by the Illuminati anyway.The Illuminati long ago infiltrated the patriot movement,by putting certain agents in leadership positions in order to mislead the patriot movement.


And most of the whites in the patriot movement it seems,side with the Illuminati anyway when it comes maintaining systematic white supremacy,as we seen in the killings of Micheal Brown and Trayvon Martin.A lot of People in the patriot movement was defending the killers of Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin.

Blacks better off joining the black nationalist movement because the patriot movement and The Illuminati are your enemies.Both groups engage in racism white supremacy, and both groups form alliances with each other when it comes time to help maintain systematic white supremacy, as we seen in the Trayvon Martin case and Mike Brown case.

-blackfirst


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Gabrielle - Ten years time

More Info

Global corporate imperialism is a direct threat to the world, including the West. Militant Islamicism is a direct threat to much of the Middle East and parts of Africa. It' s probably more of an indirect threat to people in Europe or the Americas, or those parts of Africa and Asia without a large Islamic population. Imperialism simply rules the world economy, and through that the state and much of the cultural life. (We in academia are fighting corporate takeover of universities). Jihadists can't get state power in Europe or the Americas. However, their terrorist acts may frighten the public to the point that it will accept fascistic measures desired by the Right. In the Middle East, and ISIS state may be possible in some countries. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hence a more direct threat to those people. Also, imperialism and jihadism has been known to cooperate from time-to-time. A scary marriage of convenience?

-Savant

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Why are we even talking about Kanye? What has he done for the Community? Why aren't we talking about Rev. William Barber and the "Moral Mondays Movement" which is resisting reactionary measures in Republican controlled states to DISFRANCHISE Black people and poor people, and deprive women of their rights? The UN has recently DENOUNCED the USA for its pattern of police brutality and racism. Can you grasp the importance of that? Malcolm X was trying to get us to take our cause and Uncle Sam to the world court. And now the world is again paying attention to the violation of the rights of Black folk. And what are we talking about?  Kim and Kardasian. Why do we spend so much time talking about trivia when our very existence as a people is at stake?

-Savant


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In the past we once had well off or wealthy entertainers with a social consciousness. Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte are a couple who come to mind. But I think that's less common today.

-Savant

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If they opened their eyes they would not have to travel outside the USA. I have a good number of African students whom I would take for African-Americans were it not for their African names. And some children of African parents even SOUND like African-Americans. If an Ashanti had adopted me fifty years ago, I would sound like an Ashanti man and my looks would not reveal that my biological parents were Black Americans. My North African dentist here in Baltimore thought that I was Ethiopian. But I am the son of two Black Americans parents who migrated to Bmore from the Jim Crow South. -Savant


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