From The Ramparts

Massive Layoffs Reported

Massive Layoffs

MASS LAYOFFS IN APRIL 2005 In April 2005, employers took 1,274 mass layoff actions, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits
during the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of
Labor reported today. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a
single establishment, and the number of workers involved totaled 136,837,
on a seasonally adjusted basis. (See table 1.) The number of layoff
events rose by 80, and the number of associated initial claims increased by
5,989 from March. In the manufacturing sector, 395 mass layoff events were
reported during April 2005, seasonally adjusted, resulting in 63,121 initial
claims; both figures were higher than a month earlier. (See table 1.) From January through April 2005, the total number of events (seasonally adjusted), at 5,053, and initial claims (seasonally adjusted), at 536,359, were lower than in January-April 2004 (5,465 and 564,097, respectively). - Bureau of Labor Statistics 05-27-05

While Joe and Jane Sixpack were crankin’ up the ol’ grill for the holiday Bar B Que or heading for the shore many of their neighbors were sweating out where there next meal may come from. Seems like the news on the labor and employment front isn’t so good. 136,837 AmeriKKKan workers were laid off in April. According to a press release dated 05-27-05 from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics this represents an increase of layoffs from March. When you consider the fact that auto giants like General Motors and Ford are in deep financial trouble (their stocks have been reduced to junk status) this could trigger even more massive layoffs in the auto industry; things aren’t looking so good. No wonder Bush’s approval rating has plunged to an all time low. It seems folks aren’t as stupid as ol’ Dubeya and Co. think. Any time things start impacting white folks’ pocketbooks and their children’s lives ( US Army and Marine recruiters are under increasing stress as they failed to make their quotas of securing cannon fodder for Bush’s wars for oil and empire for the last three months in a row) their opinions of their “leaders” tend to go sour. I wonder if the rogues and scoundrels who plotted and executed the theft of the 2004 election pondered what would happen when the consequences of Bush’s reckless policies finally manifested themselves. Not only are more and more people out of work, and more folks filing for unemployment insurance; even those who are working and working longer hours at more and more supplemental jobs are finding it harder to make ends meet and keep their heads above water. Not only are folks working longer and harder, their dollars aren’t going as far and their debt load is getting heavier and heavier with no reprieve in sight. Perhaps the 2004 exit pols were correct, there is a great deal of discontent with the Bush administration. Maybe now folks will realize the election was rigged, especially when you consider a state like Ohio which is suffering from massive layoffs and rising unemployment insurance claims (15,288 last month) supposedly went for Bush!
Don’t the Do- Dos on Wall Street, Madison Avenue and the beltway get it? Are they so arrogant and insensitive they think their cohorts who run the media mind control apparatus can divert people’s attention from their personal bottom lines forever? Are they that out of touch with the masses they can’t hear the rumblings of discontent and anxiety percolating under the din of the mind numbing propaganda doublespeak and spin? It doesn’t help the situation when the millionaires in the US Senate pass legislation that helps the top one per cent of the population pay even less of their fair share of taxes while putting added burdens on the rest of us or when they sneak and pass legislation like the Real ID Act of 2005 without discussion or debate. The US Department of Labor’s Bureau of labor Statistics released their Mass Layoff Summary just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Did they think folks would be so preoccupied with the long weekend they won’t notice? Did they think the corporate media would deep six the report or suppress it like they do most news that contradicts the White House Bizarro World picture of reality? People know their paychecks aren’t going as far as they used to. The AmeriKKKan public may not be as comatose and indifferent as the ruling elites think. The elites may fool them over and over but eventually the people will smell the stench and realize the urine and BS are not the rain water and manna from heaven they have been told. The question then becomes what will the people do to the culprits, how will they exact justice given the results of the last two presidential elections?

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:33 AM 0 comments

AmeriKKKan Police State One Step Closer

Big Brother Police State One step Closer

“REAL ID goes way beyond that. It's a huge power-grab by the federal government over the states' systems for issuing driver's licenses. REAL ID doesn't go into effect until three years after it becomes law, but I expect things to be much worse by then. One of my fears is that this new uniform driver's license will bring a new level of "show me your papers" checks by the government. Already you can't fly without an ID, even though no one has ever explained how that ID check makes airplane terrorism any harder. I have previously written about Secure Flight, another lousy security system that tries to match airline passengers against terrorist watch lists. I've already heard rumblings about requiring states to check identities against "government databases" before issuing driver's licenses. I'm sure Secure Flight will be used for cruise ships, trains, and possibly even subways. Combine REAL ID with Secure Flight and you have an unprecedented system for broad surveillance of the population. Is there anyone who would feel safer under this kind of police state?”- Bruce Schneier 05-0805

The cowards in the US Senate recently passed an $82 billion dollar military emergency appropriations bill that contained an attachment establishing what amounts to a National ID card. The plutocrats have been attempting to force surveillance and ID measures on the public for quite some time. Now using 9-11 as a rouse has given them the pretext under claims of “national security” to implement wide ranging means of spying on, intruding upon and interfering with the everyday lives of the AmeriKKKan public. The PATRIOT Act I and II were merely pieces on a larger puzzle to usher in a totalitarian police state under the guise of protecting the sheep from the big bad wolves of foreign terrorists. The 9-11 Whitewash Commission offered recommendations along these lines and the US congress did their part by passing it as a stand alone bill (HR 418) by a vote of 261-161 last February. Later the fascists realized they might have some trouble passing a stand alone bill in the Senate so they adroitly attached it to a military appropriations bill no one was going to oppose. If national security requires a national ID why didn’t they present it as a stand alone bill debate it and vote up or down on its merits? They didn’t do that because the legislation is totally bogus. There is no need for a national ID. The fact they snuck it by shows their disingenuousness. Most AmeriKKKans don’t even know what was going on because the corporate media distracted the public with disproportionate coverage of the Michael Jackson saga or the disappearing fiancee stories that have taken up so much time and space in all the media lately. The bill is called the Real ID Act, it mandates the states modify their respective driver’s license to follow national uniform ID standards to be established by the Department of Homeland Security. The rationale was to make it difficult for illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses. But establishing a national ID will not solve that problem. They simply will do what a lot of folks already do, drive with no license, insurance or registration! The Senate voted to pass it on May 10 without discussion or debate and of course George W “Freedom is on the march”Bush has indicated he will sign it.
The bill mandates states, at their own expense, (which means the local taxpayers will absorb the costs) will collect data on each person that show s proof of citizenship upon applying for a driver’s license; and the states must switch to a uniform and standardized driver’s license that can be swiped through computer scanners. (Where are the state’s rights advocates when you really need them?) The bill does not provide for federal funding to pay for the changes which will cause additional fiscal hardship for cash strapped states. Of course if the federal government bribes them with money more states may be willing to go along with the okey-doke. The new standardized license will contain encoded data that could be accessible through storage and sharing in a humongous national data base. (What would happen if hackers got into that data base?) Homeland Security has already gone on record as supporting Radio Frequency ID (RFID) chips that could be implanted on our person, in ID cards or on license plates. More radical supporters of a police state are calling for IDs based upon fingerprints, retina scans or DNA. How will any of this provide protection from or stop a terrorist or terrorists from doing harm if he or she is so motivated? Even the FBI admits they don’t really know the real identities of the 19 “high-jackers” who allegedly commandeered the four planes on 9-11 because their IDs were fake. This bill is just a rouse, another a step in bringing George Orwell’s Big Brother into reality. Wake up AmeriKKKa don’t allow the fascists to frighten us into accenting to a totalitarian police state! Over 600 organizations are opposed to the legislation including the ACLU. Don’t be surprised if some legal challenges surface before the bill goes into effect in 2008. Pass the word, join the fight to save your privacy and freedom!
We already endure long lines and inconvenience at airports, this new law will create the same situation at local DMV sites and state offices where applications for driver’s licences are taken, and for what? So some hacker or corrupt bureaucrat can steal our identity or sell our information? One reason so many people who knew about it opposed this bill, is because they lack coincidence in the government to maintain the data securely. An article by Lisa Vaas on www.eweek.com dated May 6, 2005 pointed out “Security experts have expressed dismay about new legislation that will usher in the nation's first national ID system—citing a lack of confidence in the government's ability to employ the technology in such a way as to prevent citizens from being preyed upon by identity thieves... ‘Gathering that information and putting it into state DMVs with a skyrocketing incident rate of identity thefts is a really bad idea,’ said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, an organization which has long opposed the idea of national Ids. It's not that the database information can't be encrypted, security experts point out—it's that the government has proven untrustworthy in doing so.” There have been a rash of hacks and computer thefts from DMVs in Nevada and Florida. Almost daily hackers and identify thieves break into government as well as private company data bases and steal information. The federal government is not immune and a national data base would be a prime target for hackers! Couple this with the potential for invasion of privacy and tracking of individuals abuses makes the bill bad news. When you consider the bill was passed in the US Senate without discussion or debate, it makes you wonder whose side they are on?

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 9:11 AM 0 comments

Help Flush Out The Truth

Help Flush Out The Truth

Dear Friend:
As many of you are aware, a classified memo was recently disclosed in Great Britain that I believe has serious ramifications for the integrity of the United States Government. Dubbed the “Downing Street Memo,” but actually comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top British government officials, the memo casts serious doubt on many of the contentions of the Bush Administration in the lead up to the Iraq war. With over 1,600 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and over $200 billion in taxpayer funds going to this war effort, we cannot afford to stand by any longer.
Along with 88 of my colleagues, I wrote to the President requesting answers about this grave matter. Thus far, our search for the truth has been stonewalled and I need your help. I believe the American people deserve answers about this matter and should demand directly that the President tell the truth about the memo. To that end, I am asking you to sign on to a letter to the President requesting he answer the questions posed to him by 89 Members of Congress.
I will personally insure that this letter is delivered to the White House.
You can read the letter here and sign on to it below. You and I know the White House is just hoping that this matter will fade away, but in a few short weeks, with our steadfastness, the memo has found its way into leading newspapers and White House press briefings. With your help, we can hold this Administration accountable.
Please pass on this important letter to your friends and colleagues, and ask them to sign as well.
Thank you for your help and support.

John Conyers, Jr. www.johnconyers.com 05-27-05

Michigan Congressman John Conyers has posted a letter on his Website asking readers to click a link to a letter demanding the White House address what has come to be known as the Downing Street Memo. This memo contradicts the reasons George W. Bush gave to the US Congress, the United Nations and the AmeriKKKan people about the need to invade Iraq. For those of you who don’t know, the Downing Street Memo is the minutes of a meeting that took place in England almost a year before the Iraq invasion in which a Member of Parliament detailed how the Bush administration was altering “intelligence” to support their agenda for war. A copy of this memo was obtained by the London Times and published in their May 1, 2005 editions. Most of the world is aware of this memo and its’ ramifications. However, due to the information control of the US corporate media and the woeful state of “journalism” in this country, the story has received scant coverage or discussion. John Conyers is one of eighty -eight members of Congress who are asking President Bush to tell Congress whether or not the Downing Street Memo is true. Of course Conyers and his colleagues already know it is true but this will give them an opportunity to cut through the veils of secrecy and deceit the Bush administration cloaks itself to get the facts to hold them accountable for their treason. What John Conyers is asking those who visit his Website to do is, read the letter and sign it, a simple request. However, there are major ramifications to this request. If enough people read and sign the letter it will force the mainstream media and the White House to ‘fess up if you will. It may even result in a congressional investigation that could potentially lead to the drawing up of articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Signing it could also put you in a government data base or target you for reprisals by agencies like the FBI ( COINTELPRO) or the CIA (Operation CHAOS). We have the power and an obligation to uncover the truth, we can not allow this government to continue along the path it (and not we the people) has chosen! If it means earning their enmity, so be it. Courage is not the absence of fear, courage is feeling the fear but doing the right thing anyway!
In the meantime, the White House will continue to stonewall. Naturally they will continue to ignore, deny and obfuscate the issue; or in desperation, attempt to sweep it away or conduct a total whitewash like they did with the 9-11 Commission Report. But, sooner or later the truth will emerge! Our challenge is to decide whether we want to be agents of truth and peace or will we be like the Germans who sixty years ago remained silent in the face of clear evil and allowed their government to drive the nation into an abyss of depravity and ruin. What if the masses of Germans had resisted Hitler? How would world history have been different? A generation ago ordinary AmeriKKKans actively opposed and resisted the Vietnam War. Young and old alike actively opposed the political/military-industrial hydra’s lies and arrogance. Of course things were different then, the media was more independent, not consolidated in the hands of a few large conglomerates and reporters actually challenged government assertions, which turned out to be lies, about the war. But even then, anti-war stalwarts viewed the mainstream media as too pro government, so they went out and created scores of anti-establishment alternative papers all over the country. We are seeing the same phenomenon today with the rise of Websites like www.antiwar.com and thousands of blogs like this one. During the ‘60's and ‘70's the clash between the warmongers, their government sycophant supporters and those who wanted peace ripped the nation apart emotionally. We still have not recovered nor healed from that rift. Today we are confronted by another major dilemma; the Bush administration is doing the same thing Hitler did. The parallels are uncanny; 9-11 mirrors the Reichstag fire of 1933, the reasons they both gave for their preemptive invasions and wars are so similar its scary. The question is, will we sit back and give Bush and Co. a free pass? I say no! I have already read, signed and submitted Congressman Conyer’s letter. If you are reading this and have any shred of decency, love of truth, justice and peace, you will too.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 8:01 AM 0 comments

Food For Thought

Food For Thought

“Many Americans are familiar with the filibuster conducted by Jimmy Stewart, playing Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra's film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but there have been some famous filibusters in the real-life Senate as well. During the 1930s, Senator Huey P. Long effectively used the filibuster against bills that he thought favored the rich over the poor. The Louisiana senator frustrated his colleagues while entertaining spectators with his recitations of Shakespeare and his reading of recipes for "pot-likkers." Long once held the Senate floor for fifteen hours. The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.” www.US Senate.gov/artandhistory

We've heard so much about the nuclear option with regard to Republican efforts to push their fascist agenda confirming Bush’ judicial nominees. I find it interesting that so called progressives and opponents of the nominees were forced to resort to threatening a US Senate filibuster to delay and discourage the confirmation process. I find it ironic because during the height of the Civil Rights era, Southern Democrats would always threaten to filibuster any legislation that attempted to destroy AmeriKKKa’s racial cast system. Following the success of the Civil Rights movement (the ruling elites’ concessions to dismantle “Jim Crow” apartheid laws under pressure from direct action civil disobedience , demonstrations and boycotts was done primarily as a propaganda ploy to clean up AmeriKKKa’s tattered image around the world during the Cold War) and passage of the Civil Rights bills of the mid 1960's, whites abandoned the Democratic Party in doves throughout the South to jump on Alabama Governor George Wallace’s presidential bandwagon. When the ruling elites eliminated Wallace via attempted assassination, they leaped to join Richard Nixon’s successful “Law and Order” campaign for the White House in 1968 . Of course in those days the term “Law and Order” was used by racists like Wallace and Nixon as a euphemism for “Maintain the status quo” and “Keep the darkies in their place”. The irony is in 2005 the Republicans are the ones threatening to change the Senate rules to prevent the Democrats from employing the filibuster custom to hold up right wing nominees for the federal bench.
* * *

It’s been three weeks since the London Times published an internal memo from a member of British Parliament written eight months before the invasion of Iraq detailing how Bush and Co. were cooking intelligence to justify regime change knowing full well Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States nor any of his immediate neighbors including Israel. The only place you see any discussion about the memo or its implications (Bush lied about his reasons for invading another sovereign nation) is on the Internet. Where is the outrage and clamoring for Bush’s impeachment for treason and high crimes, let alone for war crime resulting in the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis?! The irony of this is the people who hounded Clinton for his immorality claimed morality as their motive! Where is the Christian Right on this issue? Where are the Bible thumpers demanding Bush be held accountable for his lies and war crimes? Alas the beat goes on, AmeriKKKa remains in a media induced stupor. None of the hypocrisy, none of the scandals about the missing Iraq reconstruction money, th e detainee and human rights abuses, the horrific, heavy handed and senseless destruction wrought by US forces seems to faze the masses of AmeriKKKans as they go about their treadmill lives. The economy is doing well for the owners and CEOs but things are so good for Joe and Jane Sixpack. But the corporate owned media rarely chronicles this reality just like they suppressed and ignored the London Times memo about the invasion of Iraq. To the rest of the world AmeriKKKa must look like a rabid ravaging wolf threatening to attack anyone and anything that comes within its preview especially if they have oil or natural gas or if attacking them will somehow serve the interests of Israel.
* *
The Bush administration is still trying to convince AmeriKKKa to piratize oops I mean privatize Social Security by claiming the system is in crisis and about to go broke. Well the system is not in the type of crisis Bush claims. Nor is it in as bad shape as the federal government of which Bush and his cronies now control. In fact tying the system to the stock market may bring on even more woes and disaster than the system is experiencing now thus compounding the situation. But that’s pure speculation. What we know for sure is, Bush’s scheme will require even more borrowing by a tapped out US of A. What most AmeriKKKans don’t realize is because of Bush and the NeoConmen’s recklessness, AmeriKKKa is seen around the world as a down on its luck gambler the loan sharks don’t want to lend money to even though they know they will be the ones profiting from the loan due to the exorbitant interest they charge or the collateral they extract. They say ignorance is bliss, given what is going on in AmeriKKKa and the ignorance of the AmeriKKKan public, I’m not so sure.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:54 AM 0 comments

The Metaphysics of War

The Metaphysics of War

“National events are simply the working out of the psychic forces of the nation. Wars, plagues and famines are the meeting and clashing of wrongly directed thought forces, the culminating points at which destruction steps in as the agent of the (Karmic) Law. It is foolish to ascribe war to the influence of one person, or to one body of people. It is the crowning horror of national selfishness.” James Allen, The Path To Prosperity
“Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be...” Let There be Peace On Earth Lyrics and music by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

Recent public opinion polls suggest more and more AmeriKKKans are voicing their belief the Bush administration lied to provoke a war with Iraq. The London Times' publication of a memo by an English Minister of Parliament asserting Bush cooked the intelligence to justify a war became world wide news. As true as this may be, it does not absolve ordinary AmeriKKKans from culpability for this nation’s latest foray into imperial over reach, rapine and war. Each one of us who failed to stand against the invasion and occupation of Iraq is responsible. Everyone of us who shrugged our shoulders and thought, “Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator plus we’ll get oil more cheaply as a result of him being gone”, is responsible. Everyone who views life from a Bizarro World or Orwellian perspective where up is down, war is peace, truth is deception and oppression is liberation is responsible. Yes, Bush and his Skull and Bones frat boy crowd pushed for war, but in the end, those who gave up after the protests and went home have just as much blood on their own heads and hands as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz and the rest of the NeoConmen warmongers. Everyone who said, “stay the course” once the invasion and occupation triggered the inevitable Iraqi opposition and a world wide revulsion against AmeriKKKan foreign policy is just as guilty as the Project for A New AmeriKKKan Century members who codified their hubris in position papers and policy recommendations. Everyone who refused to speak out against the war, the killings, the brutality and abuses of detainees is just as guilty as the Germans who refused to speak out against Hitler or the Africans who failed to chastise their kings and chiefs for allowing Europeans to instigate wars against their neighbors which resulted in the holocaust of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and African colonization!! So what if the corporate media is part and parcel of the conditioning and brainwashing process, we all have the choice to turn off the television or say to Bush and the media, “ no more lies”! Alas, we did not.
It is evident Bush and his British allies lied to their respective citizens to pump up and start an unjust, illegal war. Now that we know that for certain, where is the outrage? Where is the righteous indignation and political backlash for sending our children to kill and die for an immoral imperial crusade?!! Could it be the opposition fizzled because of a repressed, yet omnipresent bloodlust? England and AmeriKKKa are what they are today because of their legacy of genocide, rapine and theft. It is not far fetched to extrapolate the current wars for oil and empire are extensions of earlier imperialist forays; but more importantly the war is an expression (manifestation) of AmeriKKKa’s war consciousness. You have to choose to go to war. Peace is not merely the result of a stand-off between two antagonists as the West likes to think. Real peace is the absence of malice, enmity, covetousness and lust. Peace is the result of a tranquil mind, where the thinker has trained him or herself to cultivate and hold thoughts of benevolence towards self and others. Peace is the outgrowth of a higher consciousness that sees the spiritual unity and physical interconnectedness of all things. Peace is the result of thinking thoughts of selfless cooperation, sharing and mutual respect. War is based upon the baser notions of alienation, fear and a severe lack of emotional control. If AmeriKKKans really wanted peace it wouldn’t matter what kind of lies Bush and the media promoted; there would be no war, period. Worse case scenario, the FEMA concentration camps would be filled to capacity with conscientious objectors, soccer moms, pacifists, mystics and sages. The warmongers would be totally frustrated in their efforts to manipulate and incite the masses to war. If AmeriKKKans were really about peace they would employ the ethical and moral philosophy and tactics of Henry David Thoreau , Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. Energy and action follow thought. What are your thoughts about peace? We are seeing this on an individual basis, fewer and fewer young people are enlisting in the military. This shows some degree of serious thought, if for no other motive than their own safety. But where are the rest of us, where do the masses of older AmeriKKKans stand on the issue of peace? The answer to that questions lies within each of us. Search within yourself, where the answers to life’s greatest questions lie.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 2:17 PM 0 comments

Bush Lied, What Are You Going To Do About It?

Bush Lied, Now You Know What Are you Going To Do About It?

“Nobody wants to go to war. We trust our leaders to shed blood in our name only when absolutely necessary. Two years after the start of the Iraq War, on March 20, 2003, Americans are just learning that our government was dead set on taking our nation to war, even while it claimed to be pursuing diplomacy. The Downing Street Memo, recently leaked, reveals that President George W. Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in summer 2002 and—determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policies—"fixed" the intelligence and facts relevent to WMD. What has come to be known as the Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002. This meeting was held a full 8 months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005. When asked about the document's validity, "British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity." The contents of the memo are shocking. The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was manipulated to sell the case for war to the American public; and how all the talk of "war as a last resort" was mere hollow pretense. Regardless of politics, all Americans should ask themselves: Was I misled? Did President Bush tell me the truth when he said he would not take us to war unless absolutely necessary?” - www.downingstreetmemo.com

The cat as they say is out of the bag, what many have known or suspected for over two years has been verified by an article recently published in the London Times claiming the Bush administration fixed the facts to bolster its intent to go to war to oust Saddam Hussein. The newspaper published a secret internal memo dated July 23, 2002 to the British Prime Minister and copied to the Defense Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, and Alastair Campbell. In it, the whole scheme of Bush wanting to invade Iraq and execute regime change is laid out eight full months before the US and Britain invaded. However the most damning points in the memo reveal the Bush administration was indeed cooking the intelligence books, jacking up the threat level and rationales for war; more importantly the memo states, “C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.” Note the part about there being little discussion of the aftermath of military action! This is why there is no clear and detailed exit strategy; they don’t plan leaving Iraq any time soon! So not only did Bush and Co lie about the how and why they invaded Iraq, the warmongers gave no thought to post invasion issues and planning. This memo published in the London Times on May 1, 2005 has been seen all over the world but here in the good ol’ US of A the corporate owned media has suppressed and downplayed the piece. What’s up with that? Why aren’t the cable channels and major networks hounding and dogging Bush to explain this? Keep in mind there have been no denials from the Blair government and several “unnamed sources” in the US have verified the memo is accurate.

Do you realize what this means? The president of the United States of AmeriKKKa and his closest cabinet officials all knowingly and deliberately lied to get this country to invade a nation that was not a military threat to the US or its immediate neighbors (although Saddam Hussein’s shift to the Euro as his oil exchange currency posed a serious economic threat to the US) that had nothing to do with 9-11 or Osama bin- Laden. This is an impeachable offense! How is it the same NeoCon and the religious right cabal that wailed and howled about William Jefferson Clinton’s immoral behavior (and it was) remains so silent about the covetousness, massive loss of life and disgrace Bush and Co have wrought on this country?! There is something morally rehensible about that. More and more AmeriKKKans are realizing and admitting to themselves and the public opinion pollsters Bush and Co lied to them about the reasons for the Iraq invasion. Perhaps they originally felt the invasion would result in plentiful and cheap oil? Maybe that's why they remained silent as no WMD were found in Iraq? Alas the AmeriKKKan treasury is being sapped and looted based upon Bush’s lies. The US is facing record federal deficits yet all requests for war funds get approved by a supine Congress while vital social services are being cut!? Over 1,600 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq and thousands have been maimed and emotionally traumatized beyond repair. The US is seen around the world as a rogue nation, a bully and a ravaging wolf. Thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and injured, cities have been leveled and destroyed, where is the hue and cry for justice for them or the demand Bush and the Nazi NeoConmen be tried as war criminals? Could it be AmeriKKKa has become a New Jack Nazi Germany or Boer South Africa in its depravity and madness? So called progressives wring their hands and peck away at their keyboards but little is being done to systemically derail the fascism that is taking AmeriKKKa over an abyss into total psychopathy and depravity. We should expect nothing less from men and women who join organizations like Skull and Bones or engage in devil worship and Satanic practices at their retreats in Bohemian Grove but what of the regular folks? What about Joe and Jane Sixpack? Why aren’t the bowling league dads and soccer moms up in arms about the carnage and killing on both sides? Does this mean the AmeriKKKan legacy of genocide, rapine; dehumanization and oppression is still alive and well!

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 9:50 AM 0 comments

Malcom X vs AmeriKKKan Imperialism

Malcolm X vs. US Imperialism

“I could see that America itself is a society where there is no brotherhood, and that this society is controlled primarily by racists and segregationists. And from Washington, D.C., they exercise the same forms of brutal oppression against dark-skinned people in South and North Vietnam, or in the Congo, or in Cuba, or in any other place on this earth where they’re trying to exploit and oppress. This is a society whose government doesn’t hesitate to inflict the most brutal form of punishment and oppression upon dark-skinned people all over the world.”-Malcolm X

As we pause to honor and celebrate the life and legacy of the man many of us knew as Malcolm X, let us do so in the African tradition. Let us hold him up as a model to be emulated not merely for his personal transformation from drug user, street hustler and crook to an upright family man but also an active and engaged leader who dedicated his life to the liberation of his people. The road Malcolm traveled was fraught with danger, scorn, misunderstanding but also much respect both open and secret. Even though many Negroes were frightened by Malcolm X both during his time in the Nation of Islam and upon his break from that organization, just as many loved and respected him! Malcolm X was not murdered because he called white people devils (others had done that) or because he had a public falling out with Elijah Muhammad, (although the US government through its COINTELPRO used that situation to promote his “neutralization”) Malcolm X was murdered because he had the courage boldness and audacity to attempt to bring the United States of AmeriKKKa before the United Nations’ World Court for its crimes of genocide, human rights violations and its racist imperialist foreign policies.
Like Paul Robeson before him Malcolm knew the only way the ruling elites would alter their systemic brutality and oppression against Africans in America was would be through adverse world opinion. He knew moral suasion and social demonstrations alone were not enough to bring US brutality at home and abroad to an end. Malcolm was astute enough to realize Martin Luther King’s push for civil rights wasn’t sweeping enough nor was it designed to bring attention to AmeriKKKa’s role as a vicious imperialistic power. Malcolm understood the propaganda implications of the “Cold War” and Western Neo-Colonialism as the United States attempted to bring newly “independent” nations of Africa and Asia under their hegemony and keep them from aligning with the Soviet Union or China. Malcolm saw through the hypocrisy of AmeriKKKan rhetoric about peace, freedom and democracy and focused on AmeriKKKa’s criminal behavior around the world. As part of his plan he made frequent visits to Africa and Arabia meeting with heads of state who shared his anti-imperialism and anti Neocolonialism concerns. Malcolm X was received by world leaders like: Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyere of Tanzania, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea Conakry. He kept his position in racial and nationalist focus courting the African, Asian and Arab leaders to win sympathy for his move to charge the US with egregious human rights violations. The last thing the AmeriKKKan elites wanted was their racist attitudes, behavior and agenda exposed for the whole world to see. Malcolm X had an uncanny way of deriding white AmeriKKKa’s self-delusion it was a civilized society. He was so effective unnerving and struck so much fear in the ruling elites, they sent agents to trail him who attempted to poison him during one of his trips to Africa. Malcolm X (like Martin Luther King would do years later) put the Afro-American struggle in global terms. Malcolm clearly understood AmeriKKKa was the new torch barer for four centuries of Western imperialism.
Malcolm chided the US for its hypocrisy. “America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was. America is just as much a colonial power as France or Portugal ever was but she is more so because she is a hypocritical colonial power at that.” Malcolm understood world history and current trends was relentless in his focus and refused to be dissuaded. He meant to embarrass AmeriKKKa before the world. In many ways the US oligarchy had moved to reduce their liabilities from the negative PR around the world by superficially embracing Martin Luther King’s non-violent Civil Rights struggle. The very idea that Malcolm X was seriously going to indict and prove AmeriKKKa guilty before the world (because AmeriKKKa was and still is guilty) meant the psychopaths running this country had to kill him. Several years later, Martin Luther King Jr. linked the struggle for human rights here with the struggle against US global imperialism and the need to redistribute wealth in AmeriKKKa which resulted in his assassination also. Things have not changed much. In fact AmeriKKKa today is more repressive and fascist than when Malcolm and Martin waged their struggle o raise consciousness and affect change. The world still labors under the yoke of AmeriKKKan psychopathy. Let us learn from history, instead of having a single leader the ruling elites can cut down let us develop an empowered mass of conscious and catalytic activist/change agents to resist AmeriKKKan fascism and global domination, by every means necessary!

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:51 AM 0 comments

The Real Deal About Iran

The Real Deal About Iran

“Economic reports published at the beginning of this month (March) had pointed towards the deep dive of the American economy and to the quick rise of the deficit up to $665.90 billion at the end of 2004. The worst is still to come. These numbers worried the international banks, who had sent some warnings to the Bush administration. In its economical war Iran is treading the same path Saddam Hussein had started when he, in 2000, converted all his reserve from the Dollar to the Euro, and demanded payments in Euro for Iraqi oil. Many economists then mocked Saddam because he had lost a lot of money in this conversion. Yet they were very surprised when he recuperated his losses within less than a year period due to the valuation of the Euro. The American administration became aware of the threat when central banks of many countries started keeping Euros along side of Dollars as their monetary reserve and as an exchange fund for oil (Russian and Chinese central banks in 2003). To avoid economical collapse the Bush administration hastened to invade and to destroy Iraq under false excuses to make it an example to any country who may contemplate dropping the Dollar, and to manipulate OPEC’s decisions by controlling the second largest oil resource. Iraqi oil sale was reverted back to the petrodollar standard.”- Dr Elias Akleh 04-19-05

The next target of the NeoConmen in their quest for global hegemony and empire seems to be Iran. The propaganda machine and the mind control apparatus are stoking the fires of hypocrisy, ignorance and fear to make war inevitable. The corporate media at the behest of their fascist owners and interlocking boards are beating the Chicken Little drum about nuclear weapons, threats and non- compliance etc. so the AmeriKKKan public actually falls for their okey doke to justify the invasion of another Arab nation that poses no military threat to this country. The truth of the matter is even if Iran had a nuclear weapon or even several of them, they lack the means to deliver a bomb or intercontinental missiles to attack their immediate neighbors (Israel) let alone Europe or the US. What is even more important for us to understand is this; AmeriKKKa is the only nation to use nuclear weapons on civilians (first Japan with the two atomic bombs and now Iraq with bunker busters and depleted uranium )! The other thing we must realize is the “War on Terrorism” is totally bogus, a staged event perpetrated on the AmeriKKKan public to terrify the public into accepting perpetual wars for oil and empire . The so called “surprise attacks” that occurred on 9-11 were known before hand ( Germany, France, Russia and Israel all warned the Bush administration something big was going to happen the week of September 9, 2001). 9-11 was not executed by Muslim fanatics living in caves in Afghanistan but by intelligence assets and operatives working in cahoots with rogue elements within the US government. Finally, the Bush administration knowingly and willingly allowed the attacks to happen. The invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government was already planned so Bush and Co could invigorate the stalled trans-Afghani gas and oil pipelines, 9-11 just gave them an excuse to do it; just as the war with Iraq was planned when Bush first came into office. The perpetual wars being planned by the Chicken Hawk NeoConmen are not about liberation or spreading democracy, they are about maintaining the tenuous economic hegemony of the AmeriKKKan Empire. True, Bush had personal animus against Saddam Hussein left over from his father’s reign, but the ruling elites feared Saddam’s shift from the US Dollar to the European Union Euro as a medium of exchange for his oil reserves. When he did it in 2000 the US Dollar was worth more than the Euro. However under the Bush retro Reaganomics of tax cuts for the super rich coupled with massive federal deficits, the US Dollar is in free fall and now the Euro is worth more. Moreover the change from Petrodollars to a PetroEuro exchange system would mean AmeriKKKa would soon sink to a second or third rate status behind the Euro and Yen and reduce the US dollar to an inconsequential also ran. So Bush and Co. really invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein to preserve US Dollar hegemony, forestall the collapse of the US economy and strike fear in the hearts of OPEC members especially Iran and Venezuela who were contemplating similar moves!
Alas the invasion and occupation of Iraq, far from striking fear in the hearts of many nations, has emboldened and strengthened their resolve to protect themselves and their people from the rabid and ravaging AmeriKKKan wolf. Iran also moved to shift from the dollar to the Euro as its medium of exchange for oil and was taking the even bolder step of establishing a Euro dominated oil pricing system. Such a move if successful ( and all indications are it will be) would be a declaration of economic war against the US, resulting in AmeriKKKa’s rapid demise. Hence the beating of the war drums. The problem for Bush and Co is, the US is getting its’ behind kicked in Iraq, recruiting number are down for consecutive months and so the outlook for a successful invasion of Iran looks dim. (See the excellent article The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro on http://Serendipity.li or an earlier piece currently available on www.Whatreallyhappened.com by William Clark entitled The Real Reasons Iran is the Next Target: The Euro- Dominated International Oil Marker originally posted on October 27, 2004 on www.energybulletin.net ) Of course you won’t see any of this in the corporate owned media, not evenThe Wall Street Journal. So as US the death toll and casualty rate mounts, keep in mind the real reason our sons and daughters are languishing in Iraq and ask yourself, is it worth it? If recent public opinion polls and seriously slumping military recruiting numbers are any indication; most AmeriKKKans, even as bamboozled as they are, don’t think so. What would the numbers be like if they knew the real deal? More importantly, how long do you think Bush and Co. could avoid a good ol’ fashioned tarring and feathering if the whole truth about 9-11, his wars for dollar hegemony andoil or his supine acquiescence to Ariel Sheron and his Likud Party sympathizers were common knowledge? Well, now you know!

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:14 AM 0 comments

The Struggle Intensifies

The Struggle Intensifies

Posted May 2005 06:39 PM
“The federal government has announced a $1 million bounty for the capture of fugitive JoAnne Chesimard, who is widely known as Assata Shakur. Assata, who is also Tupac’s godmother, has lived in Cuba nearly 30 years after escaping a maximum security jail. Today [May 2] represents the 32nd anniversary of a notorious clash between members of the Black Liberation Army and the New Jersey state troopers. At the end of the conflict, two were dead and two were incarcerated, including Assata. Rappers like Paris and Common have written sympathetic, reflective songs about Assata, Assataâs Song and A Song For Assataâ respectively”. www.MOBfiggaz.net

The US government has rachet up their reactionary COINTELPRO on liberation fighters, dissidents to send a message and serve as an example to deter resistence against their increasingly fascist agenda. COINTELPRO was a wide ranging federal program targeting the left and people of color during the tumultuous times of rising black consciousness/black power movements, opposition to the Vietnam War, grass roots labor organizing, the American Indian Movement and the emerging Chicano and Latino activism. The government dropped all pretense of democracy and freedom and morphed into aruthless police state, as they funded and facilitated local police departments becoming increasingly militarized and aggressive in their assaults on people of color. As part of their plan the government initiated sophisticated surveillance, disruption techniques and campaigns to smear and discredit all forms of opposition to its immoral policies at home and abroad. Most people are familiar with COINTELPRO the brain child of FBI director J Edgar Hoover who fancied himself the keeper of the fascist and racist status quo. Hoover in his dementia blamed all dissent on “communism”, the boggy man of his day. However Hoover’s COINTELPRO was just one of many reactionary programs the government employed to further their agenda to undermine resistence to their imperial wars and domestic oppression. The CIA in direct violation of its charter initiated OPERATION CHAOS in conjunction with COLINTELPRO to spy on, discredit and disrupt the anti-war movement which was raging across the nation. These two programs illegally spied on ordinary AmeriKKKan citizens and organizations, they initiated smear campaigns to sully and defame people who voiced opposition to the war, the US racial cast system and economic exploitation. They used the police and court system to frame a wide range of dissents like Leonard Peltier, Geronamo Pratt, Mumia Abu Jamal, they infiltrated trade unions, grass roots community and political organizations and assassinated and eliminated those they could not co-opt, bribe, coerce or intimidate. The police state was out of control. When concerned lawmakers moved to put them in check, the ruling elites working through the CIA moved on them. US Senator Frank Church who as a member of the Select Committee of Government Intelligence Activities investigated CIA abuses was targeted and defeated by those who resented his efforts to clean up the agency.
We must understand we are in an ongoing war, a war for the minds, soul and very lives of African people. Every chance the fascist get they target Africans who have stood up against their anti human anti- life agenda, which explains why they went after activists and community builder Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin formerly known as H Rap Brown and why the US government recently put a one million dollar bounty on the head of Assata ShaKur a soldier in the Black Panther Party and African Liberation Army now living in Cuba. The feds in addition to the bounty (in a display of blatant hypocrisy) have placed Assata Shakur on their most wanted domestic terrorist list. Shakur who changed her named from JoAnne Chesimard was charged with killing a New Jersey state police officer in 1973. In what probably was a case of routine racial profiling gone bad; one trooper and Shakur's brother in law James Costan were killed. Shakur and the ALA embarrassed the state by helping her escape from a New Jersey maximum security women’s facility following her conviction on murder charges in 1977. Just as the federal and state governments framed so many other dissidents or used the courts, the “legal” system and state sanctioned murder to undermine any challenges to the status quo in the ‘60's and ‘70's, New Jack fascists want to make sure there are no examples or models of resistence and revolution remaining to spark renewed opposition to their agenda of domestic oligarchy and global domination. Assata Shakur is 57 years old living in exile in Cuba under political asylum. The Sistah is well respected in the conscious African community. Hence the fascists are afraid her continued existence will serve as an encouragement to freedom fighters all over the world to defy the blatant racism, oppression, militarism and imperialism of the AMeriKKKan empire. So while this bounty is symbolic, it will also offer additional incentive for some red neck to attempt to capture her. Since Fidel Castro granted her asylum, he will probably increase her protection and security. The lesson here is, the fascists never give up. Neither should we. The struggle intensifies.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:15 AM 0 comments

See Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:11 AM 0 comments

See Eron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

Go See Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

Usually I rail against the mainstream media with its content promoting and reaffirming global white supremacy or its’ denigrating stereotypes of African people; but I went to see Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room an independent film based upon the book of the same name written by Fortune magazine journalists Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. The film is now showing in select theaters, mainly the “artsy” type venues. When I went Saturday, there was only a handful of people in the auditorium of the multiplex where it was being shown. However once the movie started you could have heard a pin drop in the place, folks were that transfixed to the screen. A documentary examines a subject from what is called the Point of View of the film maker or director. In this case according to an interview with Bethany McLean who co-authored the book the film was based upon, the film was pretty faithful to their book only more political. I’m not surprised the theater wasn’t packed, AmeriKKKans usually go to the movies for escape and fantasy, not to be informed or educated about what is going on in the world. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room looks at the rise and fall of Enron which at one time was the seventh largest company in AmeriKKKa. Enron went belly up in 2001 awash in 30 million in debt, costing 20, 000 people their jobs amidst revelations the top executives sold their shares of stock in the company for millions but did not allow employees to do the same. Consequently their employees and stock holders took major losses after the world discovered Enron was a total sham, its’ stock plummeted and the company was forced to file for bankruptcy. But Enron wasn’t just any company. It was not merely one of the many companies that filed for bankruptcy that year; it was a company that had been touted as an innovator in the energy industry, a company whose top executives were said to be brilliant risk takers and producers. Enron was almost the mythical success story, it’s president Ken Lay had a rags to riches history, He had made intimate connections to the Bush family, he was an influential player in the administration of George W Bush and held sway on both sides of the Congressional aisle.
The film begins with a re-enactment of the suicide of Enron big wig Cliff Baxter which coincided with the media attention Enron was getting as their stock prices went into free fall, the truth about their book keeping shenanigans and massive fraud started to make the headlines. From there the film tracks the rise and fall of the company’s principals especially President Ken (Kenny Boy) Lay, CEO Jeff Skilling and Andrew Fastow who would later become the media fall guy once the house of cards, smoke and mirror con game unraveled and came tumbling down. The film documents how Ken Lay the son of a not too well off Baptist preacher envisioned a deregulated oil industry and moved to capitalize on the deregulation frenzy of the Reagan era. These deregulation policies were the precursors to and helped facilitate the fascist monopoly capitalism we are now experiencing. Lay and his cronies became the toast of Wall Street as Enron employed shall we say, “creative book keeping” claiming profits from programs and plans still on the drawing board. Interestingly their accountants and the SEC signed off on this procedure. (No one has yet investigated how that happened!?) Several of their plans would later go bust, never turning a dime in profit; although Lay and his accountant (the firm of Arthur Anderson) claimed they did. Wall Street as the film points out (but never explains why) essentially colluded with the Enron executives, continuously capitalizing their fraudulent schemes, never doing the due diligence required to protect their own stock holders and investors. Once Enron was able to bamboozle Wall Street ( some suspect the bankers used Enron as a conduit and front for massive international money laundering and white collar fraud) the analysts who should have asked the tough questions didn’t and the one who did balk at promoting Enron stock got fired from his job at Merrill Lynch. Are we to believe all of the top investment banks on Wall Street and all the media except for McLean and Elkind fell for Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling’s okey doke? This is a key question line of questioning the film fails to pursue. Director Alex Gibney uses CNN footage of the Senate hearings following Enron’s collapse, videos of Enron employee and stock holder meetings, assorted sound bites from McLean, Elkind and others including former California governor Gray Davis and material on Lay and Co to paint his picture of Enron and the culture that produced it.
The film shows how Enron was all bluff and how its’ major projects all went belly up. It also points out despite these facts, the media and bankers trumpeted the company like it was the best thing since sliced bread. Subsequently just as Enron was in deep do-do financially, Lay diversified and began brokering electricity by purchasing an energy company in Portland. Enron singlehandedly ripped West cost consumers off for millions of dollars and the federal government did nothing to assist the beleaguered public. (Shows whose side the politicians are really on!) In reality Enron caused the power shortages in California. By playing taped telephone conversations of the Enron traders interspersed with sound bites from former California politicians, policy makers and energy officials the film makers provide a fuller picture of what really caused the brown outs and power shortages in California. In many ways Enron’s greed and fraud paved the way for Arnold Schwarzenegger to become governor of California. But what goes up must come down and eventually Enron came crashing down following Skilling’s departure from the company. Once Skilling left, things unraveled quickly and several executives saw what was going on and blew the whistle on the fraud and corruption. The rest as they say is history; although many pivotal questions remain unanswered. Lay and Skilling go to trial in January of 2006. Andrew Fastow has been convicted and is co-operating with the government. There are lessons to be learned from the Enron debacle, the movie Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room is merely Gibney’s take on the scandal. Do yourself a favor, get a good look at corporate greed and hubris, go see the movie.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:39 AM 0 comments

The Practicality of Virtue

The Practicality of Virtue

“Do not speak falsely to anyone, for it is an abomination to God. Do not separate you r heart from your tongue, and all your plans will be successful. You will have weight in the presence of others and be secure in the hands of God. God hates one who falsifies words. And the great abomination of God is deception and double dealing.” Ancient African teachings from the Book of Amenomope

Africans being the first humans to cultivate higher consciousness and applied ethical relationships, formulated ways to bequeath this wisdom and instruction to future generations. At first it was done orally reiterating the ideas over and over through direct conversation and communication. Subsequently ways were developed to pass these lessons on through fables, proverbs and ditties children could easily grasp and understand based on their culture and environment. As conditions permitted writing was developed and the Africans along the Nile Valley developed various means of conveying ideas through pictographs non-Africans later called hieroglyphics. Contrary to the racist disinformation propagated by our enemies, ancient and modern Africans throughout the continent developed complex ethical standards and wove them into the daily fabric of their societies. Does this mean there were no problems or conflicts? Of course not. Where there are human beings there will be disagreements and conflict. However aboriginal indigenous people (unlike the Johnny come lately Eurasians) recognized the practicality of a social milieu that fostered and promoted harmony, co-operation and mutual respect. African culture is replete with ethical teachings whether it be The Book of Amenomope, The Book of Ptah-Hotep from ancient Kemet, or Odu Ifa to name a few. In all these teachings uprightness and virtue were the goal, it was not merely an abstract ideal to be mouthed, but a very pragmatic way of promoting successful human relationships and interaction. For example in saying IX of the Book of Amenomope we see an admonition against lying and speaking falsely. Speech is considered vital in African cosmology for it was by sppech the worlds were formed and MA’AT established. What if Western society placed such an emphasis on telling the truth? What if George W Bush or William Jefferson Clinton had been socialized in such a culture that held speaking truth as a virtue? What if the Aryans made civility, truth, reverence for life and living virtues? Would we have seen the cultural legacy of invasion, rapine pillage and plunder that mark the Indo European way of life even today in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? What if Europeans were trained from childhood to speak truth to power rather than master deceit and disingenuousness? Would AmeriKKKa even exist as a nation? Remember AmeriKKKa is what it is and where it is because as our indigenous Native American brethren learned the hard way, “the white man speaks with forked tongue.”
Africans believed in the axiom “As above so below.”, to them the majesty and vastness of the Cosmos was reflected in the minutest elements (the atom) , the microcosm was a reflection of the macrocosm and the person was a reflection of his cultural environment. So the virtues of MA’AT, right conduct, truth, propriety, reciprocity and equilibrium were taught, promulgated and applied throughout Africa. This is what Cheikh Anta Diop referred to as the “Cultural Unity of Black Africa” Dr. Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau of the Kongo testified thus, “I grew up in a village of at least 1,000 inhabitants (before it knew the rural exodus). There was not a single policeman, the jail was unknown, no secret agent i.e. a people’s watchdog. It did not have a bureau of investigation, no sentry to watch on people’s goods. In daytime the village was practically and in its entirety empty without a single person to take care of unlocked doors. Strangers were always welcome. Everybody felt responsible for everybody else in the community and it neighborhood. When a community member suffered, it was the community as a whole that suffered.” African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo page 49-50 What does this have to do with truth? Everything. Being truthful is a virtue, it means one has attained a level of consciousness that values being genuine and real both to one’s self and others. If one is genuine and real, one does not do to others what he himself would not want done to him or herself. If one raised in a higher we/us unified consciousness such as the one Fu-Kiau grew up in as opposed to an alienated predatory individual consciousness communities we would not see the dysfunction we see in AmeriKKKa as it forces its values on the world. I remember going South to visit my uncle and his wife in Southampton County Virginia in the 50's, 60's and 70's, they left the keys to the pickup truck and tractor in the truck and tractor. The doors remained open and unlocked and when we went out a spare key was over the door sill and everyone knew it! Even in my neighborhood in Philadelphia there was an element of trust and safety just not like in the Southern black communities. If we are to resurrect ourselves and thrive as a people, we must return to the higher consciousness and cultural values of our African ancestors. The more we adopt the predatory values and lifestyles of our enemies, the more insane and dysfunctional we become. Our healing is not in assimilation, our healing is in Sankofa.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 2:30 PM 0 comments

A Draft Is Coming

“Recruiters in Ohio, New York, Washington, Texas and New England said that as long as an offending recruiter met his enlistment quota of roughly two recruits a month,
punishment was unlikely. ‘The saying here is, 'Production is power,' ‘ the recruiter in northern Ohio said. ‘Produce, and all is good.’ He said that in the last year, he had seen recruiters
falsify documents so that applicants could earn ranks they were not qualified to hold. When enlistees tested positive for marijuana, he said, recruiters coached them to drink gallons of water before visiting military doctors. Occasionally, the recruiter said, he has been ordered to conceal police records and minor medical conditions like attention deficit disorder, which usually disqualifies a candidate. When he and others resisted such orders, he said, superiors threatened to ruin their careers. The recruiter, who has fought in several conflicts including the current war in Iraq, said one in every three people he had enlisted had a problem that needed concealing, or a waiver. "The only people who want to join the Army now have issues," he said. "They're troubled, with health, police or drug problems." The recruiter said he believed in the Army and his job, often working 80-hour weeks. But he sometimes worries about the mental capabilities of those who are enlisted, he said, especially as they move up the ranks.” New York Times 05-03-05
Several weeks ago I wrote a piece called Uncle Sam’s Desperation were I pointed out military recruiters are having problems meeting their quotas and as a result the US Army recently raised the age limit from 35 to 39 years old; a sure sign of increased desperation. Now a recent New York Times article pointed out the pressure recuiters are under to meet their quotas and the unsavory tactics they are using. A Colorado CBS television station aired a segment showing how a 17 year old high school student decided to find out just how far recruiters would go to get enlistees. The young man, named David McSwan from Arvada West High School, contacted a local Army recruiter and told them he was a high school drop out. The recruiter coached the boy to make up a false diploma from a non existent high school. McSwan recorded the telephone conversation. McSwan also told the recruiter he had a drug problem and the recruiter told him to use a detox tablet and drink plenty of water and his test would come up clean. The resourceful youngster had one of his friends video tape his interactions with another recruiter who took the boy to a store where he purchased a detox kit. Once CBS 4 ran the story the US Army promised a “full investigation” Yeah right!
The Times article and the CBS4 piece may be a set up to dramatize a very real problem, the AmeriKKKan Empire’s inability to recruit cannon fodder for their imperial crusades for oil and geopolitical hegemony and set the stage for the reinstatement of the draft. The Army and Marines are having increasing difficulty meeting their monthly quotas. A recent Gallup Poll indicated that fifty per cent of Americans openly admit believing the Bush administration lied about the reasons for the Iraq invasion and occupation. The ongoing violence from the Iraqi resistance with no end in sight make enlisting in the US military a no brainer. As the usual anonymous quote from a recruiter in the Times article said, “'The only people who want to join the Army now have issues,' he said. 'They're troubled, with health, police or drug problems.' The recruiter said he believed in the Army and his job, often working 80-hour weeks. But he sometimes worries about the mental capabilities of those who are enlisted, he said, especially as they move up the ranks.” While there is no question the military is under extreme pressure to meet their quotas for an all volunteer force, the Empire is not beyond using the media to dupe and prepare the masses for reinstatement of conscription or a military draft. I have been predicting for two years now that the draft will be reinstated because of the imperial over reach of the chickenhawk NeoConmen who are setting domestic and foreign policy for the village idiot who occupies the White House. Their arrogance and covetousness have no bounds but the Law of Karma is not mocked. As it becomes more and more obvious to sane young people the government lied to them, they became unwilling to risk life and limb for a lie. The only ones signing up now as the Times article says are those with issues. Similar to the Vietnam era once the government and military lose credibility, even if they tell the truth they will be suspect. So now they have lost the trust of half (according to a recent Gallup poll) the AmeriKKKan public. If the only suckers willing to sign up are the ones with mental, drug and adjustment problems ,this does not bode well for the military and their warmongering masters in the White House and Pentagon. So rather than alter their course and policies, the Empire will force their subjects to serve their imperialist agenda. The Times article will in many ways escalate the dialog for the draft. They have to. Bush and Co. are building permanent military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Central Asia and the resistence fighters in Iraq are not letting up. The AmeriKKKan Empire like all empires before it, is using mercenaries but they need additional legions to usher in their Pax AmeriKKKana version of the New World Order. Look for more corporate media pieces on the recruitment shortfalls coupled with cries of “stay the course!” from the Bushites and their Democratic sycophants. Eventually this will enable them to do what they want to do, reinstate the draft. The problem for them is, a draft will energize and revitalize the anti war movement. The more people in open and active resistence to their imperialist agenda the greater the possibility we can derail their fascist program. Don’t believe the hype, be proactive by resisting reinstatement of the draft now before it goes any further.
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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:18 AM 0 comments

Religious Fanaticism and End Times


“What US evangelicals overlook is that the end of the world may bring the second coming of Christ, but the price may be the end of the United States as a nation. By that standard, US evangelism is conceptually anti-patriotic. In World War I, the European monarchies lost their thrones in a war to defend their empires, and in World War II, the "democratic" imperialists lost their colonies in a war of intra-imperialist rivalry to gain more colonies. The next world war, launched by superpower neo-imperialism to spread bogus universal democracy, will have similar self-destructive ironic outcomes. Democracy with local characteristics, based on universal equality, will rid the world of neo-imperialism and superpower hegemony.” Henry C.K. Liu

Much of the support for the fascist agenda of the NeoConmen who have an ideological and policy stranglehold on the Bush administration is undergirded by the Christian Right. Their looney blend of doctrinal eschatology and political world view, their totally uncritical support for Zionist aggression, their tacit continuation of the Crusade against Islam and jingoist imperialism serve as a catalysts for the Rapture and return of Jesus. For those of you not familiar with Christian doctrines, many Protestant sects adopted the Judaic assimilation of the Persian notion of a penultimate global upheaval of the present world resulting from a cosmic battle between the forces of light and darkness with the forces of light eventually winning and ushering in a new world order. The battle was is often referred to as Armageddon the scene of the final conflict between the agents of good and evil as recorded in the King James version of the Christian Bible in Revelations the 16th “Chapter” and 16th verse. This conflict took place in the area near present day Iraq but called Babylon in ancient times . The Christian version of end times added the idea of a final judgement, the resurrection of long decomposed bodies amidst catastrophes, earthquakes and calamities culminating in the physical return of Jesus from the clouds to claim the faithful and beam them up to eternal glory. Sounds almost as fantastic as the Muslim notion that dying in defense of Islam against “infidels” guarantees entrance into their idea of paradise! These are the mind sets the NeoConmen and fascist ideologues manipulate to endorse and promote their immoral wars for oil and empire. It is why they can tout Bush’s election as a victory for morality despite the fact his policies have resulted in the deaths of over one hundred thousand innocent Iraqi men women and children and fifteen hundred US soldiers!? The faithful yet gullible Christian fanatics egged on by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell don’t even blink at the moral contradictions this presents. (What ever happened to “Thou shalt not kill, and Thous shalt not steal?) The religious fanatics are only concerned about their being in the number when Jesus “returns” and being magically and mystically beamed up to meet him in the air. (It’s amazing, people who arrogantly believe themselves intellectually superior to the rest of the world actually believe stuff like this) Meanwhile back on terra firma, Bush and the NeoConmen are creating a living hell for the masses of people unfortunate enough to live over vast amounts of natural resources or strategic routes along proposed pipelines that will transport oil and natural gas to markets, places like the Balkans and Afghanistan. But then again Western (European) Christianity always had imperial links. As Liu points out in his article, Militarism and Failed States, “Christian doctrine of love and peace has always been accompanied by the theme of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, as evidenced by the Crusades and numerous expeditionary campaigns in the colonial world to protect or avenge attacks on Christian missionaries. Professor Bacevich, along with others analysts with similar views, explains that evangelicals, aghast at Vietnam-era protests of the US war against 'godless communism', turned to the military as the repository of traditional US Christian virtues. Of course, the images of Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest government-sponsored persecution from Catholics in Vietnam generally failed to disturb US Christian evangelicals, nor the centuries of anti-Semitic programs in Christian nations. For Christian evangelicals, end-times doctrines join US national security with eschatology, the belief in the end of the world coinciding with the second coming of Christ. Biblical prophecies clearly merge US fate with Israel... Islam on the other hand is a fanatic and expansionist infidel sect in the Judeo-Christian world view. Islam inherited the role of godless communism as the post-Cold War target of a Christian holy war against satanic evil.”
The religious right’s Pavlovian support of the NeoConmen agenda won’t hasten the return of Jesus but it may, as Henry Liu wrote in an eight part serial in Asian Times Militarism and Failed States ( www.atimes.com ), hasten the end of the United States as a nation. The ratcheting up of AmeriKKKa’s preemptive military interventions which by the way are nothing new, ala recent examples in Panama, Haiti and Grenada have put an undo strain on both the military and the nation’s resources. Bush’s irresponsible fiscal and military decisions are pushing the Empire to the brink of collapse! The truth of the matter is AmeriKKKa is not winning in Iraq, Afghanistan is in social and political shambles despite the construction of the trans-Afghani pipeline and permanent US military bases; the prospects of improvement in either nation any time soon appear nil. The NeoConmen are going to pursue their agenda no matter what; but the support of the gullible Christian right gives them added propaganda and PR punch. The down side is that as the situation in Iraq worsens, as the dollar slides further and further below the Euro and the deficits get larger and larger, the AmeriKKKa public will eventually tire of the bad news, the body bags and the consequences of mounting debt. We see signs of that now in the latest public opinion polling data. As this scenario worsens the religious right’s influence will wane. As reality sets in and more AmeriKKKans realize they have been duped and lied to, the religious right will be forced to abandon the sinking Neocon ship and look for the rapture to take place another time.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:09 AM 0 comments