Price Gouging By Big Oil
Price Gouging By Big Oil “Americans are feeling the pain of higher oil and natural gas prices. Accordingto a CBS News poll, 86 percent of people have been affected by higher gasoline prices‘some’ or ‘a lot.’ Polling shows that nearly 70 percent believe that higher gasolineprices will cause financial hardship for them or their family. The high price of naturalgas will further squeeze family budgets. Yet while ordinary Americans suffer under theweight of high energy prices, the world’s largest energy conglomerates are enjoyingrecord-breaking profits. According to The Washington Post, the 2004 profits for Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips broke records across all industries. In 2004, at over $25 billion,Exxon-Mobil booked the highest profit of any company in any year and broke its own record in 2005 with a $36 billion profit. Yet, oil company memos show that they made part of these profits by constraining refining capacity to drive up prices. These record profits have more than doubled CEO salaries, with Exxon CEO Lee Raymond receiving an astounding $144,573 per day on average for the last 13 years. So, while consumers are paying more at the pumps and on their heating bills, oil companies are getting billions in tax breaks and sweetheart deals from the Bush administration and their congressional allies.” Pain at The Pump Profits In The Boardroom , Center For American Progress Action Fund
The price shock we are seeing at the gas pump these days is a direct result of policies initiated by the Bu$h-Cheney cabal and the blowback from these policies. What we are seeing at the gas pump is a replay of what the Bu$h-Cheney ally Enron’s Ken Lay and his executives did with electric energy in California and several Western states several years ago prior to the collapse of the company. While most of us suspect the rise of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas prices is part and parcel to the Cheney energy task force’s polices, policies the Bu$h-Cheney cabal fought desperately to keep secret and which even today are impacting their domestic, military and foreign policies. Since 2002 prices at the pump have jumped considerably. A report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund which calls itself a nonpartisan research and
educational institute dedicated to finding progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and advance policies that help create sustained economic growth and new opportunities for all Americans says, “
Since January 2002, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline increased as much as $2, a 174 percent climb, and the average residential cost of a thousand cubic foot of natural gas is up about $5, a 60 percent increase. Despite these burdens on consumers, the administration and Congress have done little to increase conservation or energy efficiency, or take bold steps toward alternative sources of energy. Instead, conservatives have demonstrated their commitment to supply-only solutions, like drilling in protected areas off our coasts and in Alaska, undercutting our economic, environmental and national security interests in favor of oil and gas companies that are enjoying record profits.” The name of the game as they play it is direct bribery (euphemistically called “lobbying” and special interest groups) of public officials so the “elected officials” do what the energy and oil companies pay them to do.
“Overall, Enron gave $2.3 million to federal candidates and the political parties during the 2000 election, more than double its $1.1 million in 1998 and more than any other energy company, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan research group that studies campaign finance. Almost three-fourths of the company's donations went to Republicans. Right behind Enron in campaign contributions from energy companies was Southern Co., whose Southern Energy subsidiary, recently renamed Mirant, is an electricity supplier in California. Atlanta-based Southern Co. gave $1.3 million in 2000, including $14,000 directly to Bush.” http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/enrn25.
So the cause and effect relationship of escalating gas prices on one level, is the result of the ruling elites, their elected puppets and sycophants operating in collusion and partnership with the major conglomerates and multi-national corporations so a corporatist oligarchy is setting policies. Part of the cause of high prices are the political unrest in Nigeria, Columbia, Iraq, Iran and the percolating intrigue the US is fomenting in Central Asia. Much of this is a reaction to US intervention and covert policies. So when Bu$h and Congress jump up to create the illusion they are concerned about rising gas prices and making us think they are attempting to reduce them, they are merely posturing. The fact is most of the causes of the out of control gas prices are the direct result of what Bu$h and Co and their cronies in big oil have done.
“Despite damage to rigs and refineries during the devastating 2005 season, oil companies reported record annual profits on the back and gasoline prices in 2005. The growth in energy prices has been very kind to Exxon-Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded energy company. In 2005, Exxon-Mobil has announced record quarterly profits, including $10.7 billion in the fourth quarter. With nearly $100 billion in revenue in both the third and fourth quarters, it also posted the most revenue of any U.S. corporation in any single quarter. Its 2004 net income of $25.33 billion was the highest annual profit of any U.S. corporation in history, and they broke their own record in 2005 with an annual profit of $36.1 billion. Since 2002, the year that sharp increasesin gasoline prices began, Exxon-Mobil profits have increased by 215 per cent... Over the past six years, oil and gas companies have spent nearly $450 million on politicians, political parties and lobbyists in order to protect their interests in Washington. Since 1990, energy companies have made $183 million in political contributions alone, 75 percent of which have gone to Republicans In addition, over the past six years, nine of the top ten recipients of contributionshave been Republicans. In just the last election cycle, the oil and gas industry contributed more than $20 million to Republicans, four times more than the amount donated to Democrats.” Pain at The Pump Profits In The Boardroom , Center For American Progress Action Fund
Both political parties have their hands out taking contributions from lobbyists, they have learned to be money grubbers par excellence at the expense and to the detriment of us the taxpayers.
“For their lavish political contributions, energy companies have been nicelyrewarded in the energy bill that a Republican-controlled Congress guided into law this past August. Even as oil and gas companies enjoy record profits, hard working Americantaxpayers will be footing the bill for over $4 billion in industry giveaways includingnearly $2 billion in tax breaks and a $1.5 billion fund for an consortium based in Rep. Tom DeLay’s district that was slipped into the 2005 energy bill without a vote. Harder to quantify but perhaps more egregious, the Republicans energy law also waives the requirement for oil companies to pay royalties and gas from federal areas in some instances. Essentially the record profits from high prices borne by American consumers without recouping any funds for the nation. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that incentives to drill in the Gulf of Mexico will cost the American Government $20 billion over the next 25 years.” Pain at The Pump Profits In The Boardroom , Center For American Progress Action Fund. So you can see we are suffering because our corrupt elected officials sold us out and acquiesced to the bribes of the big oil companies and their representatives. It is part and parcel to the ongoing class warfare in this country. Isn’t it about time we started holding these sell outs accountable and we begin treating them as the traitors they are?
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US Hone Foreclosures On The Rise
US Home Foreclosures on The Rise “Nationally, the number of mortgage loans that entered some stage of foreclosure rose to 117,259 in February, up 68% from the same month a year earlier, according to Irvine, Calif., online foreclosure-data service RealtyTrac. Delinquencies are up as well. Data provider LoanPerformance, a subsidiary of First American Real Estate Solutions, reported that 3% of the most vulnerable loans -- those made to borrowers with less than a stellar credit history -- were 90 days delinquent in February. That is up from 2.84% in February 2005. Meanwhile, 90-day delinquencies for loans made to borrowers with better credit were up to 0.76% in February, from 0.67% a year earlier. The rise in delinquencies isn't surprising, according to Doug Duncan, the Mortgage Bankers Association chief economist. In its own quarterly survey, for the fourth quarter of 2005, the association showed a 0.26 percentage point uptick in the rate of mortgage delinquencies as well as a 0.01 percentage point increase in the foreclosure rate from the third quarter.” By Danielle Reed From The Wall Street Journal Online http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends
The corporate mind control apparatus’ job is to spew propaganda, disinformation, lies and to distract folks so we don’t know what’s really going on in this country and around the world. By now it is old hat the mainstream media served as cheerleaders and stenographers for the Bu$h administration as they lied the nation to an illegal and immoral war and an endless quagmire in Iraq. Contrast the lack of due diligence about Iraq and WMD with how the same media went after Bill “I did not have sex with that woman” Clinton during his second term. Clinton’s extramarital dalliances did not cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people, it did not impact US military personnel called upon to execute a discombobulated mission and occupation of a sovereign nation nor did Clinton’s lies throw the federal budget totally out of whack. Now while the corporate media are focused sports, the bogus immigration issue and the exact same deceit and scare tactics they used about Iraq this time with Iran, gas prices are going through the roof, inflation and interest rates are on the rise and as a result AmeriKKKans are falling further and further behind in their ability to keep up with the cost of living and pay their bills.
“Consumer advocates and foreclosure analysts said several factors are driving up foreclosures. Among them are rising payments on adjustable-rate mortgages, high energy costs, job losses and higher required minimum credit-card payments. ‘Any one of them would be serious,’ said George Roddy, president of the Foreclosure Listing Service. He cited last year's changes to the federal bankruptcy law, which make filing for protection more difficult, as another possible factor. Before the change, he said, Texas homeowners often turned to bankruptcy protection to keep their homes out of foreclosure. The number of foreclosures started edging upward a few years ago after the layoffs in the telecom and airline industries. But foreclosures have continued to rise even as the economy has improved.” http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/13670095.htm
Home foreclosures are on the rise in the US. More and more folks are seeing their dreams pulled from under them simply because they can no longer afford to pay their mortgages. The cost of living has risen steadily the last several years but real wages have remains stagnant. Couple this with the fact many households have over-extended themselves credit wise due to unusually low interest rates and the easy ability to borrow on the equity of their homes or purchase homes using non-conventional mortgages such as: Adjustable Rate Mortgages, no money down and interest only mortgages. Of course there are a myriad of additional reasons, such a media influence about real estate speculation being a great way to get rich, escalating housing appreciation (which has now slowed nation a wide), predatory lending practices which preys on people of color who tend not to have stellar credit histories nor a financial cushion when things get tough. Finally regional and national economic trends such as the mind-boggling national debt, rising interest rates and the recent increase in the money supply, which will cause even more inflation.
With the economy on shaky footing, the fears in the airline and auto industries about employment security and cutbacks coupled with the steady rise in gas prices and home heating oil prices; this puts an additional strain on family budgets. These times may warrant cutting back on your lifestyle or in some cases, if things get tight some people may be forced to miss a car payment or a mortgage payment or two. Once folks miss a payment or get behind in their mortgage payments it becomes a snowball effect. If you don’t have the money for one month’s mortgage, it is highly unlikely you will have it for two or three let alone five or six! The problem is many people don’t even contact the lender to try to work out a solution.
“According to a recent survey by Freddie Mac and Roper Public Affairs and Media, a market research firm, more than half of the people who fall behind in their payments don't even try to work out a solution with their lenders. That head-in-the-sand attitude is one of the reasons the foreclosure rate climbed in every quarter of 2005, and why more than 846,000 American homes were in some stage of foreclosure last year, according to RealtyTrac, an online company that tracks foreclosures across the nation.” http://chicagotribune.interest.com/inside Lenders know when you miss a payment and they will attempt to contact you. If you fail to respond and also don’t pay your mortgage payment you are setting yourself up for more problems. The Freddie Mac survey also revealed,
“The survey also shows that 61 percent of those interviewed said they did not know there were 'workout options' available through their mortgage companies that would help them get through their financial troubles. And 92 percent said they would have talked to their lenders had they known that ‘workout options’ existed. Every lender has ‘workout options,’ often referred to as loss mitigation or forbearance programs. They vary, depending upon the company and the reason you are late. For people going through a temporary, tough period, lenders will often set up an installment plan that lets borrowers repay past-due payments on top of the regular payment. In some cases lenders will refinance the entire loan, including the overdue amount, over a longer period. When finances are such that the homeowner will not be able to catch up, the lender can let the owner sell the house. When the house is sold and the loan is paid, any extra money is theirs to keep. In some cases the lender will let the homeowner sign the house over to them, skipping the cost, court time and embarrassment of a foreclosure. In these cases, it is often possible to negotiate a deal in which you do not have to repay the money you might still owe. So, even when homeowners do lose their homes, they can often do so without having a foreclosure on their credit reports for the next seven to 10 years, or carrying home-related debts with them.” http://chicagotribune.interest.com/inside_article.asp?
If you find yourself in this situation contact your lender, you may be able to work out something. If present trends continue, and the proverbial housing bubble bursts (and here are indications it may) more and more homeowners will find themselves in the precarious predicament of being forced to miss a mortgage payment, getting behind in their mortgage payments and facing possible foreclosure. With the changes in the personal bankruptcy laws it is not as easy to walk away from your debts and so it would behoove us to formulate strategies to reduce our debt, stop going for the advertising okie-doke, cut our spending and start saving where possible. The spike in foreclosures could be an ominous sign. Each family’s situation is different. I advise you to tighten your budgets so you avoid the threat and problem foreclosure.
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Gas Prices and Bu$h's Approval ratings
Gas Prices and Bu$h's Approval Rating “WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's approval ratings have sunk to a personal low, with only a third of Americans saying they approve of the way he is handling his job, a national poll released Monday said. In the telephone poll of 1,012 adult Americans carried out Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, 32 percent of respondents said they approve of Bush's performance, 60 percent said they disapprove and 8 percent said they do not know.” CNN April 25, 2006
George W Bu$h has lost the respect and confidence of most of the AmeriKKKan people. When recent public opinion polls reveal only 32% of AmeriKKKans asked indicated they approved of the job George W Bu$h was doing as president that means two thirds of the people believe and feel Bu$h is doing a horrible job. Bu$h’s ratings are so low, he is trying everything imaginable to impress the masses but nothing is working. Everyday Bu$h is beset by a new scandal, another setback or revelation of something going wrong in Afghanistan, Iraq or at home. The Iraq occupation is going badly despite Bu$h’s rosy and largely discredited assessment of the situation. The only allies Bu$h can muster are the corporate media mind control apparatus, his fellow NeoCons and fascists in both political parties. Now news is coming out of Afghanistan that the Taliban are reasserting themselves and taking the country sides again. At home Bu$h is plagued and befuddled by escalating gas prices while oil companies are announcing huge record breaking profits and their executives and CEOs are being paid obscene salaries, bonuses and retirement packages. Bu$h is facing a mounting crisis and growing discontent from the AmeriKKKan citizens. This is an across the board phenomena, as dismal as Bu$h’s personal approval ratings are, the rating of his Vice President Richard Cheney are subterranean. Cheney is universally despised and is seen as a poster boy for corruption, lies and insensitivity. It’s almost as if the Law of KARMA has caught up with the Bu$h-Cheney cabal and the UNIVERSE is making an abject lesson of them. More and more people are convinced Bu$h is a liar and an incompetent. A recent CNN/USA Today poll indicated fewer and fewer people see Bu$h as trustworthy.
“Asked whether ‘honest and trustworthy’ describes the president, 40 percent said yes, down from 56 percent in a survey carried out April 1-2 last year. Americans were evenly split on whether Bush is ‘competent,’ with 47 percent saying yes, 47 percent saying no and 6 percent expressing no opinion. Dissatisfaction with their leader appears to parallel Americans' unhappiness over gas prices. More than two-thirds of Americans (69 percent) said recent increases in the cost of gasoline have caused them hardship, with 28 percent saying they have not, and 1 percent saying they have no opinion.” http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/24/bush.poll
Rising gas prices are causing angst and anxiety for AmeriKKKans all across the country. Most people see the profits the major oil companies along with the immoral profits the no bid contracts politically connected companies like Haliburton and Bechtel are reaping and they conclude Bu$h is colluding with the oil companies to gouge them just to rake in a few billion dollars more. Bu$h, sensitive to his plummeting approval ratings and perceptions his oil business cronies are taking advantage of the public has come out and announced plans to deal with the situation. For me I think this is a perfect scam, a plastic attempt to garner public support and approval as he steps in to “solve” the problem; a problem he has created by his (and Dick Cheney’s) policies. The reality is oil prices are up because of a myriad of additional factors; the unrest in Nigeria, sabotage of the pipelines in Columbia, decreased production from Iraq, unease about the Iran situation and competition from other oil dependent countries like China. So Bu$h will use this to grandstand in an attempt to pump up his falling approval ratings. However most of he causes are out of is control. An MSNBC analysis by John W. Schoen on the MSNBC Website today says quite succinctly,
“For starters, there is little the White House or Congress can do to control the price of crude. At recent highs of $75 a barrel, the cost of crude oil has jumped by a third since November as demand for oil continues to grow faster than global production capacity. Nervous oil buyers are paying these high prices because they're worried about possible supply bottlenecks from multiple hot spots like Iraq, Nigeria and Iran. And the biggest single factor driving up the price of a gallon of gas is the sharp increase in oil prices.” There is no short term solution to the problem and with AmeriKKKa now seen as a ravaging wolf and pariah by many of the OPEC nations, things probably will not get better any time soon. AmeriKKKa squandered opportunities earlier to push for alternative sources of energy, and sacrifice to lessen this nation’s dependence on crude oil. Bu$h paid lip service to it in his last State of the Union speech but that was mere posturing and B.S. As with most of what Pinochio says it can’t be trusted. Like the boy who cried wolf once too often, Bu$h is now in the unenviable position where even on the rare occasion when he tells the truth, no one believes or trusts him.
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Same Ol' Game
The Same Ol’ Game “Unsurprisingly, the West dominates the world arms market in terms of sales. Over the last six or so years, the US has towered over the other countries in weapons sales, clocking up $49,271 million worth of sales (at 1990 prices) between 1996 and 2000. Its nearest competitor, Russia, made $15,690 million worth in the same period, but a large majority of these were of second hand weapons. According to SIPRI, just under half of all transfers (movements) of major conventional weapons between 1996 and 2000 came from the US, Russia and France each accounted for 10 per cent, and Britain and Germany each accounted for between five and 10 per cent. The seven following biggest sellers - the Netherlands, Ukraine, Italy, China, Belarus, Spain and Israel - accounted for around 15 per cent of the world total transfers between them. So it is clear that the global arms market is controlled by just a few players. The six biggest arms selling countries - four of whom, ironically, are permanent members of the UN Security Council - accounted for almost 85 per cent of all arms transfers over the last six years.” The Arms Trade by Gideon Burrows http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html
When we hear of “rebels” attempting to overthrow a sovereign government be it a democratically elected one, a dictatorship or a puppet regime somehow the media never tells us where the guns and supplies came from the “rebels” used or who financed or supplied the logistical support for the rebels? That’s because the media doesn’t want us to know th real deal. For example the fighting and resulting refugee problems in Darfur is now spreading into Chad creating havoc and security problems for the Chad government. A report by the United Nations High Commission of Refugees states,
“There is an overall security deterioration in Eastern Chad, with some reports of an increased proliferation of weapons, particularly around the border area. Reports from the border area indicate that cattle theft and other criminal acts appear on the increase. Equally, there is an increased military presence at both sides of the borders. Competition over scarce resources (such as water and firewood) and a poor harvest during the last rainy season are fueling the tensions between the local population and the refugees. UNHCR, ICRC and the Government counterpart are holding regular meetings in Abeche, together with representative of the Chadian police forces to improve the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding for camp security. According to the MOU signed between the Government of Chad and UNHCR, Chadian police forces, including female officers, have been deployed to the camps to improve physical protection of refugees. Local authorities, UNHCR and partner agencies are conducting sensitization campaigns in all camps and surrounding villages to promote more peaceful cohabitation between the local and the refugee communities” http://www.unhcr.org Notice the brief mention of weapons proliferation. If you want to destabilize a whole region one of the things you do is foment wars and conflict and arm both sides. In the case of Chad the refugee problem is being caused by the long running interracial fighting between the Arab militias from Sudan called Janjaweed and the indigenous Africans of the region. The infighting and civil wars in the region is causing displacement of massive numbers of people turning them into refugees, many who have fled to nearby Chad. There have been border clashes between Chad and the Janjaweed. Now Chad is having problems of its own as the government of President Idriss Deby is claiming Sudan is supporting the rebels who recently launched an attack on the Chad capital of N’Djamena. The fighting is causing massive social upheavals in both Chad and Sudan.
Ever wonder who funds and arms these “rebels”, “insurgents” or whatever the Western press calls them? We know it’s not African nations. How can cash poor, resource rich but African nations severely exploited by the IMF and World Bank afford to pay for small arms. munitions and ordnance to wage internecine warfare? The world arms sales tend to be the monopoly of European nations.
“From 1989 to 1998, the US provided over $227 million in weapons and training to African military forces. Of this, over $111 million went to governments that have been directly or indirectly involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Angola, Burundi, Chad Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.The big seven arms-selling countries in the world - the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and Italy have all sold arms to states currently involved in conflict including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Israel, China, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. And they usually show their deadly wares at arms fairs.” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html The arms dealers don’t just do it to make money they do it as part of an overarching plan to depopulate and destabilize whole regions so their corporate buddies and partners can come in and rape and pillage the land of natural resources, control large swaths of territory or subdue strategic geopolitical positions. In the cases of Darfur (Sudan) and Chad there are several prizes, namely oil and water.
“A consortium led by two US companies has been investing $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves - estimated at 1 billion barrels - in southern Chad. The nation's total oil reserves has been estimated to be 2 billion barrels. Oil production came on stream in late 2003. Chad began to export oil in 2004.” http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
“In 1999, Sudan began exporting crude oil and in the last quarter of 1999 recorded its first trade surplus, which, along with monetary policy, has stabilized the exchange rate. Increased oil production, revived light industry, and expanded export processing zones helped sustain GDP growth at 8.6% in 2004.” http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
Nowadays where there is crude oil, expect the leeches and parasites to attempt to gain a toe hold in the region! When we connect the dots, we see what is really going on. The Europeans have exploited existing Arab-African tensions in Sudan and have moved to destabilize neighboring Chad in an effort to create massive social upheaval, disruption and human dislocation so they can bum rush the oil and in Sudan’s case the water from the Nile. Here’s where the arms sales come in. You can’t have a war, killing and massive dislocation without arms and weapons. So the leading arms dealers do their thing, sit back and wait for the resulting chaos, death and depopulation.
“The ongoing bloody conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, has been called Africa's 'first world war'. In 1965 Mobutu Sese Seko became president of Zaire with the backing of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who needed a strategic friend in Africa. Mobutu quickly became one of the continent's most brutal dictators, but was nevertheless supported by the US in weapons sales and military training. Even after the Cold War, the United States continued to supply military support to the Mobutu regime. In 1991, more than $4.5 million of military equipment was delivered to Zaire. In 1996 and 1997, Laurent Kabila and his Alliance of Democratic Forces fought running battles with the Mobutu dictatorship, eventually ousting the despot. The US immediately offered the Kabila regime military training, even as the new president suspended human rights and banned opposition political parties. On 2 August 1998, DR Congo's current brutal conflict began, with nine African nations siding with either the Mobutu faction or Kabila regime in a fight for DR Congo's rich mineral and diamond resources. Foreign troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, Sudan, Chad and Zimbabwe have all been drawn into the fight, along with irregular and guerrilla movements from surrounding African states. US, Britain, China, Russia, South Africa and other weapons-selling giants have gathered like vultures, gladly supplying the factions with weapons of death. Even after six of the governments involved were drawn together to sign the Lusaka peace accords in July 2000, the battling continues, supported by Western countries and their arms companies.” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html The current situation in Sudan/Chad is merely a variation on the same theme of this ongoing program. When the smoke clears the big US oil companies Exxon Mobile and their consortium partners have the right of ways for the oil and in Chad’s case the right of way for the pipelines since Chad is landlocked. Plus the devils attain another one of their diabolical goals; the death and depopulation of huge numbers of African people. This is the same program they ran on the Native Americans. It’s the same ol’ game being played over and over again and Africans are the big losers.
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From Hip Hop To New World Order
Robert Johnson From Hip Hop To The New World Order
“In the three business days before the attack, put options on United and American Airlines skyrocketed. The Chronicle reports that on one day, put options on United Airlines shares jumped 25 percent from the year-to-date average. In the month before the attacks, short sales on American and United jumped by 20 and 40 percent, respectively. The trades were not replicated in the stocks of any other airlines. Some of the United Airlines put options were purchased through Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, which is the American investment banking arm of Deutsche Bank, one of the world's largest investment firms. Deutsche Bank was also the source in unusual trading patterns of Merrill Lynch stock, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter stock, and stock in Munich Re and the AXA Group, two of the insurers of the World Trade Center. What makes this particularly of note is that, until 1997, the head of Alex Brown was A.B. ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, who is now the third in command of the CIA. He is essentially the agency's chief operating officer. He was appointed to that position in March 2001, after serving for three years as a counselor to CIA Director George Tenet. Krongard presided over the sale of Alex Brown to Bankers Trust Corp in 1997. The new company was bought out by Deutsche Bank AG in 1999. Mayo Shattuck III was the CEO of private banking and asset management for the Americas at the time of the attacks. He had been Krongard's second-in command, and was a major player in both of the bank's recent mergers. In September of 2001, he resigned from his $7 million a year position. Where he turned up is interesting. According to his ‘Businessperson of the Year’ profile in the Baltimore Business Journal, Shattuck was named president and CEO of Constellation Energy in what the Journal described last October as "a surprise move." Even Shattuck described it as coming ‘from right field.’ The article points out that Shattuck has no experience in the energy industry, and "lacks in-depth knowledge on many issues facing Constellation.” http://www.apfn.org/APFN/WTC_case.htm
I received an E-mail containing an article from the Washington Post dated March 15, 2006 informing Robert Johnson creator and former CEO of Black Entertainment Television (BET) recently purchased a small Florida Savings and Loan thrift with the intention to turn it into a program that promotes financial services for African-Americans. The first paragraph of the article reads, “Robert L. Johnson, the founder and former chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, said yesterday that he acquired a tiny Florida savings and loan and plans to move it to Washington to use as the springboard for a large consumer financial services company aimed at black customers. The bank, to be renamed Urban Trust, is part of an effort by Johnson to build what he hopes will be the country's largest minority-owned financial services company, one positioned to attract major Wall Street investors as it seeks to foster and profit from rising black wealth. The company is meant to compete with the nation's most elite financial firms, but, its new chief executive said, it will also spend ‘a lot of afternoons in churches’ advocating homeownership.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031401910.html - The E-mail was sent via a group list I’m a member of and it was really to pump up Robert Johnson and his latest efforts to build wealth in the African-American community. I started not to even read it but my Higher Consciousness told me to check it out. While the Post article is pretty bland about mid way through the article, something caught my eye, the names of two of the financial entities Johnson is teaming with caused the red light to go on in my head, Deutsche Bank AG a German and Dutch international bank with suspicious connections to 9-11, the US CIA and money laundering and the Carlyle Group one of the largest investment/take over equity funds with connections to world leaders and insiders such as George HW Bush, the former Director of CIA, Vice President , President (and father of the current US president), John Major former Prime Minister of Britain, James Baker III former Secretary of State and US Treasury, Frank Carlucci former Deputy Director of CIA and Secretary of Defense to name just a few of the international heavy hitters on Carlyle’s board . The Carlyle Group is making mad money off of the bogus “war on Terrorism”. What made my eyes light up is the fact numerous investigators have discerned that several days prior to the 9–11 “terrorist attacks” on the World Trade Center and Pentagon there were several unusually high “put” options on both United and American airlines which seem to indicate insider foreknowledge of the pending “attacks”. Many of these “put” options were funneled through the US investment arm of Deutshe Bank, Bankers Trust AB Brown . “Suspicious trading occurs on the stock of American and United, the two airlines hijacked in the 9/11 attacks. Between 6 and 7 September, the Chicago Board Options Exchange [sees] purchases of 4,744 put option contracts [a speculation that the stock will go down] in UAL versus 396 call options—where a speculator bets on a price rising. Holders of the put options would [net] a profit of $5 million once the carrier’s share price [dive] after September 11. On September 10, 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings, [are] purchased in Chicago. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. Investigators cannot help but notice that no other airlines [see] such trading in their put options.' One analyst later says, ‘I saw put-call numbers higher than I’ve ever seen in ten years of following the markets, particularly the options markets.’ [Associated Press, 10/18/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/19/2001] ‘To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also [learned] that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options ... on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA. Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc., which was bought by Deutsche Bank. His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust—Alex Brown’s private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/index.jsp
Since 9-11 there have been many investigators who pointed this out but no one in the Bu$H administration or the mainstream media followed through on this information. Quite as its kept, over 2.5 million dollars worth of put options went unclaimed. The 9-11 whitewash commission totally ignored this information as well as the fact Deutshe Bank was one of the banks of choice for the bin-Laden family. Getting back to Bob Johnson, the Washington Post article stated , “Johnson, since resigning as chairman of BET in December -- he sold the privately owned cable broadcaster to Viacom Inc. in 2000 for $3 billion -- has been assembling what he calls his 'second act': a large asset management and financial services firm from the Bethesda headquarters of his RLJ Cos. He has teamed with Deutsche Bank AG to form a hedge-fund investment business for wealthy individuals and institutions. And Washington's Carlyle Group, the biggest U.S. private equity firm, is helping him form a leveraged-buyout fund. Three years ago, Johnson began investing in hotels, and he now has a $3 billion portfolio of properties around the country.” So Bob Johnson former Hip Hop Video Channel entrepreneur is linking up with Deutshe Bank AG an entity with noted CIA connections which has been linked to the 9-11 insider trading and the Carlyle Group one of the most profitable private investment banking groups in the world! Hmm, Pretty high cotton for a black man from Mississippi whose family moved to Illinois when he was an infant. Johnson made his money with BET a low budget cable channel that broadcast music videos, infomercials and reruns of black sitcoms on numerous cable systems around the country. BET came under relentless criticism because of its dummy down programming, lack of public affairs and in depth news but Johnson remained adamant in his assertion BET was a business, it was not about race redemption!
Johnson owns an NBA franchise and now he is venturing into financial services. The article states he purchased the Savings and Loan thrift with plans to relocate it to Washington D.C. and launch an African-American financial service. “Robert L. Johnson, the founder and former chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, said yesterday that he acquired a tiny Florida savings and loan and plans to move it to Washington to use as the springboard for a large consumer financial services company aimed at black customers. The bank, to be renamed Urban Trust, is part of an effort by Johnson to build what he hopes will be the country's largest minority-owned financial services company, one positioned to attract major Wall Street investors as it seeks to foster and profit from rising black wealth. The company is meant to compete with the nation's most elite financial firms, but, its new chief executive said, it will also spend ‘a lot of afternoons in churches’ advocating home ownership.” http://www.washingtonpost.com While Johnson’s intent and efforts are commendable and I have no doubt he will be successful, my concern is he is getting into bed with some truly ruthless characters who would think nothing of using him or making him the fall guy in a criminal enterprise ala the Savings and Loan Scandals George HW Bu$h was involved in with his sons Jeb and Neil in the 1980's. Once his thrift is set up they could exploit his inexperience and naivete to initiate a scheme to launder huge sums of money something Deutsche Bank has allegedly been doing for quite some time. A joint press release dated October 14, 2005 between Duetshe Bank and the New York Federal Reserve Bank stated, “The Federal Reserve Board and the New York State Banking Department on Friday announced the execution of a Written Agreement by and among the Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, New York, N.Y., the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the New York State Banking Department. The Written Agreement addresses Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance at Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, including policies and practices relating to the provision of correspondent banking services.” In essence the bank agreed to tighten up and come into compliance with anti money laundering statues. The bank has known CIA, New World Order ties so the agreement was just a formality to prevent legal action against them by the government.
The economy and the real estate markets are volatile and in transition and could be disasterous for black folks who don’t know the ins and outs of real estate investing and who are traditional victims of racist practices. If Johnson and his bank are not planning on providing education to his customers, his financial partners may be using Johnson as a Judas goat to dupe black folks out of their hard earned money via predatory lending, “Studies have shown that black and Hispanic homeowners are too often sold mortgages that require higher than normal interest rates. In 2005, a Federal Reserve Bank study revealed that in 2004, regardless of income levels, blacks were about three times as likely as whites to borrow through mortgages with excessively high rates. The target neighborhoods in the PACE pilot have foreclosure action rates two to four times higher than other neighborhoods in the City. The foreclosure filing rates in the target neighborhoods run approximately 10% of the total residential 1-4 family homes there.” http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index. . Bob Johnson is going where few black men have gone, he may reap even bigger rewards for his efforts or he may learn a hard lesson about dealing with white folks and their system.
Deep Moral and Fiscal Dodo
Deep Moral and Fiscal Do Do
“More troubling still is the federal government’s overall financial condition and long-term fiscal imbalance. While the fiscal year 2005 budget deficit was lower than 2004, it was still very high, especially given the impending retirement of the “baby boom” generation and rising health care costs. Importantly, as reported in the fiscal year 2005 Financial Report of the United States Government, the federal government’s accrual-based net operating cost—the cost to operate the federal government—increased to $760 billion in fiscal year 2005 from $616 billion in fiscal year 2004. This represents an increase of about $144 billion or 23 percent. The federal government’s gross debt was about $8 trillion as of September 30, 2005. This number excludes such items as the gap between the present value of future promised and funded Social Security and Medicare benefits, veterans’ health care, and a range of other liabilities, commitments, and contingencies that the federal government has pledged to support. Including these items, the federal government’s fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing close to four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005 and up from about $20 trillion or two times GDP in 2000. Given these and other factors, a fundamental reexamination of major spending programs, tax policies, and government priorities will be important and necessary to put us on a prudent and sustainable fiscal path. This will likely require a national discussion about what Americans want from their government and how much they are willing to pay for those things.” Government Accountability Office Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Finance, and Accountability, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives
AmeriKKKa as a nation is in deep trouble fiscally, morally, spiritually and physically. It’s as if DIVINE JUSTICE or KARMA has caught up to this nation. It’s as if the thing Thomas Jefferson feared the most has come to pass. In his Notes on The State of Virginia, the pedophile, slave owner and rapist Thomas Jefferson probably lamenting more for himself than for AmeriKKKa said, “When I consider that God is just, I shudder for my country.” Well Tommy boy, the day of reckoning is at hand. The manifold sins, wickedness and hubris of your ilk, kith and kind and those you were able to dupe, coerce, manipulate and lead are being weighed on the scales of Ma’at (Divine Order, Harmony, Equilibrium, Truth, Justice, Rectitude and Reciprocity) and found wanting. By its own hand, not the arbitrariness, capriciousness, vindictiveness or perniciousness of some white god sitting on the throne out in space, but by its own actions, AmeriKKKa has reached this point; reviled as a rogue nation, a bloodthirsty, rapacious, villanous collection of wolves in sheepskin waiting to pounce on the world. Alas the AmeriKKKan empire may be very short lived. Its’ leadership was able to couch and disguise its crass imperialism in grandiose terms such as “Manifest Destiny”, “The War To End All Wars”, “The Cold War”, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and other nonsense, but the truth is steadily being revealed, AmeriKKKa is just like all the other European powers, a blood sucking parasitic leech, a cancer on humanity. AmeriKKKans who support and acquiesce to the fascist imperialist hegemony of the present leadership of both political parties will reap just as previous empires suffered and collapsed, some swiftly others drawn out over time.
Looking at AmeriKKKa in 2006 we see a government which is really an appendage of the corporate rather than familial oligarchy (although prominent families play a vital role running this fascist system) is about to implode from deliberate fiscal mismanagement, maleficence, out and out fraud and criminal conduct. In it’s most recent review of the US government’s fiscal status, the Government Accountability Office states quite plainly the government is in perilous shape. “
For the ninth consecutive year, certain material weaknesses in internal control and in selected accounting and financial reporting practices resulted in conditions that continued to prevent us from being able to provide the Congress and American people an opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government were fairly stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Further, we also reported that the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2005. Until the problems that I will discuss today and that are discussed in our audit report are adequately addressed, they will continue to have adverse implications for the federal government and the taxpayers.” I suggest you download and read the 2005 GAO report at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-406T., it is a lengthy accounting document but a real eye opener. The report reveals the fact various federal government agencies do not accurately report their agency’s financial transactions which leads to massive unaccounted for funds (potential fraud and theft) and one of the most egregious agencies according to the GAO report is the Department of Defense (it’s really the Department of Aggression/War). Couple this report with the fact the US Congress recently raised the debt ceiling to forestall (not prevent ) a major default on US Treasury bills, the spiraling federal debt, the escalating trade deficits and a President and Congress bent on bankrupting the nation, and we are in deep do do. Bu$h campaigned as a“Compassionate Conservative”. Some of us already knew but most have now discovered the hard way, Bu$h is neither compassionate nor a fiscal conservative. Taking their cue from Ronald Reagan and his brand of “voodoo economics” Bu$h and his NeoCon buddies in both political parties went on a tax cutting/ spending rampage which has now consigned AmeriKKKa to the global poor house because of their reckless spending, deliberate mismanagement, perpetual wars and out and out theft. Dubeya makes the international drug trafficking and the Savings and Loan scams his father and brothers ran look righteous by comparison. Even that global loan sharking shake down operation known as the IMF is saying this present course is unsustainable; but the Bu$hites and NeoCons have both hands on the throttle, it’s full speed ahead the public be damned
Joe and Jane Sixpack have no clue what is about to hit them. All they know is their home equity and credit cards are tapped out, their paychecks can’t keep up with rising costs and things don’t look good for either the short term or long haul.(The Fed has ordered the printing of trillions of worthless paper money called fiat currency which will raise the cost of everything and the new Fed Chairman has already raised interest rates which will cause debtors even more financial pain) Foreclosures already at an all time high, are up, bankruptcies increased in 2005 to beat the deadline before the new bankruptcy law took effect in October of 2005. “Personal bankruptcies soared 30% to a record high last year as financially strained people rushed to file before new restrictions took effect Oct. 17. Bankruptcy petitions filed in federal courts totaled 2,039,214 in 2005, up from 1,563,145 in 2004, according to data released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. A new law, which brought the most comprehensive revision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in a quarter-century, made it more difficult to erase debts in bankruptcy. Before its enactment, the number of bankruptcy filings had been fairly stable.” http://www.usatoday.com/money/
Keep in mind the new Bankruptcy Laws was written not by our elected representatives, but by the banks and credit card companies whose lobbyists’ shmooze, grease the palms of and contribute to the political campaigns of our congress critters who dutifully passed it; prostituting themselves again one more time. It’s an example of action-reaction, cause and effect. There is no escaping the LAW of KARMA. We are where we are at any point in our lives due to the decisions (conscious and/or unconscious) proactive and passive we have made. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing (allowing others to sell us out and manipulate us) we’ll keep getting what we’ve got (a morally and fiscally bankrupt government). If we want change ( to a better, more humane system) we’ll have to make it happen
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Modern Day Sambos
Modern Day Sambos “That's not, of course, the kind of story detailed in CORE's ‘Voices from Africa,’ where GM crops are presented as the only hope of salvation for resource poor farmers. Nor is it the kind of story told by CORE's Paul Driessen in his syndicated op-ed pieces, which were timed to coincide with CORE's UN "World Conference". Driessen informed his readers that "these safe, delicious foods" were vital for Africa because they could "replace staples devastated by disease -- including Kenyan sweet potatoes". Interestingly, just a week or so before Driessen made that claim, the Kenyan journalist Gatonye Gathura, received a Kalam award for journalistic excellence for his article on the sweet potato project, "GM Technology fails local potatoes." Gathura's piece blew the whistle on the abject failure of Monsanto's showcase project in Africa -- a project that had garnered literally thousands of column inches of positive press.” - The Uncle Tom Award Jonathan Matthews, 16 March 2005 http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php
Roy and Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality have been up to some seriously treacherous dealing in recent years. Ever since the US Supreme Court installed George W Bu$h in the presidency Innis has been maneuvering and attempting to position CORE as the preeminent House Negro organization in service to the NeoCon globalist agenda. After 9-11 Innis went to the Bu$h administration and warned them to watch out for the Nation Of Islam and other African-American Islamic organization as they might be a source of sympathy for Muslim terrorists and a possible fifth column. So here we have a so called black organization ( I intentionally used small case) promoting racial and religion profiling and surveillance just to get in good with what the group they consider Mighty Whitie. In recent years CORE has sponsored a Martin Luther King Jr Dinner and to the angst of most Black folks they have invited key members of the Bu$h administration to speak or receive awards, in 2004 Tommy Thompson the secretary of Health and Human Services was the keynote speaker and in 2005 CORE invited Karl Rove the architect of Florida voting scandal that helped disenfranchise thousands of African-Americans.
Not only has Roy Innis and his tag along son Niger shifted CORE to the Right, they have jumped on the fascist corporatist bandwagon big time. As more and more black folks eschew the notions of self-determination and doing for self in favor of corporation hand outs, branding and prostituting themselves to corporate AmeriKKKa, Roy Innis has taken it to an even higher level. Innis has hooked his wagon to the Republican Party machine and now rivals Jesse Jackson and the Negroes on the Democratic Party dole as a serious money grubber. CORE has allowed itself to be used by companies like Monsanto the mad scientists who manufacture Frankenfoods who have virtually cornered the market on genetically modified (or altered) foods. In a 2005 article on the Website http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php Innis and CORE are castigated for their support of genetically modified (GM) seeds and foods. Multinational giants like Monsanto need Black and Brown faces to support Frankenfoods as they target First World people (Africans Asians Pacific Islanders, South and Central Americans) as consumers and captive markets for their diabolical products. They use PR and Spin to make folks think GM foods are the latest and greatest innovative boon to mankind when in fact they are unproven, untested and potentially dangerous mutations that the FDA has rubber stamped but the European Union will not even allow in their countries.
“Of course, such attempts to position biotech's soap box behind a black man's face neither began nor ended in Johannesburg. In late 1999, for instance, a street protest against genetic engineering in Washington DC was disrupted by a group of African-Americans bearing placards such as 'Biotech saves children's lives.' A Baptist Church from a poor neighborhood had, the New York Times revealed, been paid by Monsanto's PR firm to bus in the counter-demonstrators. But Johannesburg does seem to have been a kind of watershed. Since then, Monsanto's fake parade has really begun to hit its stride. And from US administration platforms to UN headquarters, from Capitol Hill to the European Parliament, we've been treated to a veritable minstrelsy of lobbying. Let's pick up the trail amidst the Martin Luther King Day observances in New York City this January. That was when the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) invited some 700 diplomats, scientists, journalists, and Gotham high-school students to come and consider the ‘implications and reality’ of biotechnology at UN headquarters. CORE's 'World Conference' was presided over by His Excellency, Aminu Bashir Wali, the Ambassador of Nigeria, and after lunch came the premiere of the film 'Voices from Africa', showcasing the results of ‘CORE's fact-finding trip to Africa’. The film opened and closed with comments by CORE's National Chairman, Roy Innis, who explained that it was his concern about hunger in Africa that led him to go there to see for himself and to investigate the potential for biotechnology. The film concluded with Innis saying, ‘We have to do everything possible to ensure that the African farmer has access to this new technology which potentially can do so much to improve his quality of life.’” http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=344 . Another sad case of Negroes selling us out for a few dollars more and allow Ol’ Massa to pat them on the back or rub their heads as they grin, shuffle and buck dance for our enemies.
Innis is being used as a front man and puppet in a strategic campaign to positively spin GM in Africa for Monsanto. The truth is many African nations are resisting GM foods and seeds and rightly so.
“The scramble for Africa is getting hotter today than it may have been during the Berlin Conference at which she was partitioned. The partitioning of Africa sowed the seeds of discord and conflict that we are reaping today... We are talking about the onslaught by the biotech industry... The siege is on. Many people imagine that the pressure on Africa to accept genetically modified grains or other crops as food aid ended with the widely known case with Zambia in 2002. That emblematic case rightly showed that every country has the sovereign right to determine what type of food to eat, irrespective of whether it is purchased in the market or is donated as aid. And it demonstrated to the world that the predicted catastrophe of Zambians starving never happened. Genetically engineered food has been presented as the ultimate weapon against hunger in Africa and the world. This is also seriously suggested in the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) meaning that this may be the direction efforts will be concentrated in the years to come. African leaders have largely been co-opted into thinking this way because they are warned that since the so-called Green Revolution train left Africa standing at the station they should not miss the gene train. It has been noted that the Green Revolution required extensive chemical and equipment inputs and although food production increased in some areas, small scale farmers were marginalized, the environment took a beating and on the aggregate hunger was boosted in the world.” http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5174
This campaign by Monsanto is part of a global push to bum rush indigenous farmers, undermine their natural farming techniques, control the market and push their Frankenfoods on unsuspecting masses like they did in AmeriKKKa with the help of the FDA. Only in Africa people like Roy and Niger Innis are being used (paid) to be the piped pipers for Monsanto. The sad part of all of this is Innis knows what he is doing but chooses to sell our people out for a few dollars more.
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Immigration Debate From A Black Perspective
The Current Immigration Debate From A Black Perspective In many ways the current brouhaha over immigration policies is a bogus issue, a ruse. It is a distraction being used by the administration to take our focus off the escalating federal debt, the ongoing debacle in Iraq, the administration’s subterranean approval ratings and the growing discontent with the way it does business. The administration hopes the resulting debate both pro and con immigration reform will take people’s minds off their own dismal performance. The other oddity is while reciting his 9-11-National Security mantra as the rationale for everything he does, Bu$h supports amnesty for illegal aliens while doing nothing to shore up security along the nation’s borders and ports. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are tripping over themselves to give some immigrants (keep in mind the Bu$h/NeoCon cabal and the corporate media have stoked Arab xenophobia since 9-11) the impression they are welcome here is not lost on Africans in America who remember the howls of protest against the Haitian “boat people” during the Clinton Administration. Vivid images of starving and impoverished dark skinned Haitians who only wanted an opportunity for a better life in America being turned back by the US Coast Guard still remain fixed in our consciousness. The fact that Africans and Caribbeans of African descent are not openly welcomed in America is also not lost on native African Americans.
Civil rights organizations like the NAACP and Urban League have remained mute on the issue probably because they do not want to get caught up in what they perceive as a divide and conquer scenario by attacking another group of people of color. Nevertheless, many grassroots Africans in America feel immigrants legal or otherwise take employment opportunities from them as they see employers looking for ways to enhance their bottom line as willing to pay lower wages and benefits to illegal aliens who are happy just to have any kind of job while not employing African-Americans already here. Many low skilled and low paying jobs such as farm laborers, landscapers, maids, nannies and housekeepers are now being filled by immigrants. Despite the animus and in some cases, envy percolating under the surface within the African-American community, the traditional African -American leadership which in many ways has lost touch with their poorer brethren have not weighed in on this issue. Over the weekend there were numerous rallies and demonstrations in support of immigration reform, yet many African-American leaders have shunned participation in both the debate and demonstrations . Part of the problem is the immigrants while claiming immigration reforms is a civil rights issue, have not reached out to, asked for support from or attempted to form alliances with Africa-Americans.
Many whites like to rationalize their exploitation and taking advantage of the illegal aliens and legal immigrants by saying they hire them because they have a better work ethic than African-Americans or poor whites. They claim they are more responsible and hard working than us. This is nothing more than a continuation of the lies they told about our ancestors being lazy, shiftless malingerers, the lies they used to rationalize the specious denigration and dehumanization of us as a people. So now they brag about hiring an illegal and pay them much less but they say they do it because the immigrants are better workers than native-born AmeriKKKans. Now they say if the reported eleven million plus illegal immigrants in this country were deported or sent home, the AmeriKKKan economy would collapse. That is utter nonsense and an insult to the hard working folks denied employment due to racial discrimination here in AmeriKKKa or globalization policies foisted upon us by the ruling elites and their stooges in the US Congress who passed legislation supposedly espousing “free trade” but that are in reality undermining the AmeriKKKan economy, depressing wages which will eventually undermine the standard of living of most AmeriKKKans.
Lastly, AmeriKKKa has always had quotas on the number of immigrants and unabashedly touted AmeriKKKa as a “white nation” meaning Anglo-Saxon based population passing restrictive immigration legislation as early as 1798. The US has a quota on the number of non-Europeans that come into this country. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act despite the fact Chinese helped build the trans-continental railroads and worked in the mines in California during the late 1860's. By 1917 Congress had passed immigration laws excluding a plethora of nationalities and ethnic groups. And the beat goes on. This debate is nothing new, in fact from my perspective it is a bogus issue, part and parcel to a program of white supremacist discrimination and exploitation.
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Trans-Generational Poverty
Trans-Generational Poverty “In fact, recent research for the U.S. population shows that the exact opposite of GlennHubbard’s claim is true: while a child’s income might deviate from that of his family for a fewyears, the longer one compares economic outcomes, the more the experience of the childrenreproduce that of their fathers. Studies of economic mobility typically predict the son’s or daughter’s income on the basis of father’s income, correcting only for the age of parent and child. As recently as 1988, economists thought that a father’s earnings were only weakly correlated with his children’s income. Recently, however, new data sources have permitted studies that look at ten times as many father-children pairs (3000 versus 300) for periods as long as sixteen years.3 These studies show that the longer the period over which income is averaged, the higher the correlation between the incomes of fathers and children. That is to say, there is indeed a lot of year-to-year income variation over a worker’s lifetime. But averaged over many years, the income of the father is a very strong predictor of the income of the son or daughter. The correlation is even higher for families with low wealth, the poor, than for the wealthy; it is also higher for black families than for white.” The Century Foundation http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequality/ClassWarfare/myth4.pdf
While doing research on a piece about the ongoing and escalating class warfare in AmeriKKKa, I came across a report from The Century Foundation an organization whose Website says it “is dedicated to infusing the nation’s critical public policy debates with solid research and expert assessments. We call attention to facts and present analyses that debunk widespread misconceptions and provide policymakers and the public with new ideas for addressing the challenges facing the nation. Much of the work of the Foundation is aimed at challenging broad claims about the advantages of privatization, tax cuts, and market solutions and questioning assumptions about the ineffectiveness of safety net programs, education reform efforts, and government oversight.” http://www.tcf.org/about.asp The report I reviewed was entitled Class Warfare Fact or Fiction. I looked at Myth # 4 which says, “Over the course of their lifetimes, Americans are highly likely to enjoy upward economic mobility”. In other words the ol’ Horatio Algier rags to riches tale. The report was written by a man named Bernard Wasow but he quoted liberally from a study by Thomas Hertz entitled
Rags, Riches and Race: The Intergenerational Economic Mobility of Black and White Families in the United States. Thomas Hertz documented something most of us already know, if you are African-American and your father was/is poor more than likely you will be poor too! Hertz’ studies hold true for poor whites but more so for poor blacks. What Hertz, an American University Economics professor says in his study is that for blacks the issue of poverty is more about race, than class. However since the masses of Africans In AmeriKKKa are not wealthy or rich most blacks are on the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder, it stands to reason as the AmeriKKKan economy tanks as it has been doing for a while, more and more blacks will go down with the ship especially since so many are being born into impoverished single parent families.
For whites, the dynamics of socio-economic class/caste are becoming almost as rigid as they are for Africans in AmeriKKKa according to a new line of research and investigation. A recent Wall Street Journal article pretty much bursts the Horatio Algier myth (which by the way was the focal point of The Century Foundation piece I referred to earlier)
“As Mr. Mazumder, the Chicago Fed economist, put it in the title of a recent book chapter: ‘The apple falls even closer to the tree than we thought.’ Why aren't the escalators working better? Figuring out how parents pass along economic status, apart from the obvious but limited factor of financial bequests, is tough. But education appears to play an important role. In contrast to the 1970s, a college diploma is increasingly valuable in today's job market. The tendency of college grads to marry other college grads and send their children to better elementary and high schools and on to college gives their children a lasting edge. The notion that the offspring of smart, successful people are also smart and successful is appealing, and there is a link between parent and child IQ scores. But most research finds IQ isn't a very big factor in predicting economic success. In the U.S., race appears to be a significant reason that children's economic success resembles their parents'. From 32 years of data on 6,273 families recorded by the University of Michigan's long-running survey, American University economist Tom Hertz calculates that 17 percent of whites born to the bottom 10 percent of families ranked by income remained there as adults, but 42 percent of the blacks did. Perhaps as a consequence, public-opinion surveys find African-Americans more likely to favor government redistribution programs than whites.” As rich-poor gap widens in U.S., Class Mobility Stalls- by David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal articles says, quite succinctly
“But the reality of mobility in America is more complicated than the myth. As the gap between rich and poor has widened since 1970, the odds that a child born in poverty will climb to wealth -- or a rich child will fall into the middle class -- remain stuck. Despite the spread of affirmative action, the expansion of community colleges and the other social change designed to give people of all classes a shot at success, Americans are no more or less likely to rise above, or fall below, their parents' economic class than they were 35 years ago. Although Americans still think of their land as a place of exceptional opportunity -- in contrast to class-bound Europe -- the evidence suggests otherwise. And scholars have, over the past decade, come to see America as a less mobile society than they once believed.” Given the current economic realities where former Blue Chip giants like GM and Ford teeter on the verge of bankruptcy and their hourly workers are being asked to make gargantuan pay and benefit sacrifices, what does this mean for future generations when these current hourly wage earners are forced to take massive cuts in their wages and standards of living?
Another article looking at class warfare in AmeriKKKa stated,
“It should also be noted that the Wall Street Journal's focus only on income mobility leads it significantly understate the real degree of socioeconomic immobility in the U.S. The astonishing extent of American socioeconomic and related racial disparity becomes more fully evident when you factor in wealth. In the U.S., the most unequal nation in the industrialized world, the top 1 percent owns more than 40 percent of the wealth. The top 10 percent owns two-thirds of US wealth, leaving the rest of us - 90 percent of the population - to fight it out for one third of the nation's assets. Things get worse, again, when you factor in race. By 1999, economist Thomas Shapiro finds, the ‘net worth (all assets minus all liabilities) of typical white families was $81,000 compared to $8,000 for black families’ in the US. By the recessionary year of 2002, black net worth fell to seven cents on the white dollar.” http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7954 What they are saying Brothers and Sistahs is the wealth gap is widening and when you factor for race, the divide is more expansive and longer lasting! Recent reports in the New York Times based upon research paint a very bleak picture for African-American males. We are more likely to be unemployed, homeless, on probation or parole and incarcerated than our Euro-American counterparts. And our life expectancy is less than white males also. While researchers do acknowledge education as a key factor in “upward mobility”, our experiences here in AmeriKKKa suggests higher educational advancement does not cancel out racism! And researchers are fond of telling us more African-American males are incarcerated than attend college. So the prospects look grim. Is there a solution? Yes, but it means rethinking and redefining our status and position in this country. It means taking a positive proactive ethnocentric, race first survivalist approach rather than a “victim” or beggars’ mentality. Are we targets of white animus? Of course. Is it going to change any time soon? Not hardly. To survive, we have to decide to opt out of the mind control matrix and think about our situation from an intelligent historically based perspective rather than an ostrich head in the sand approach pretending this is not our reality. One person can’t have all the answers but ancestors like Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Pop Singleton and others exhorted us to be self-sufficient, industrious and have a race first attitude. Survival means more than having a job, it is about creating values, culture, institutions and lifestyles that nurture and support us mentally, spiritually as well as physically. As the AmeriKKKa Empire implodes and crumbles, it is incumbent upon us to have a collective strategy to save ourselves, or we will surely go down with the ship.
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Food For Thought Some More Things That Make You Go, Hmm?
Food For Thought Some More Things That Make You Go, Hmm? “
Days ago, Cynthia McKinney was a heroine to local Democrats because she was standing up for disenfranchised voters everywhere. The controversial congresswoman from Georgia was even worthy of taking center stage at a rally at one of area's most identifiable events: the Sarasota Film Festival. But that was before McKinney was accused of striking a Capitol police officer and became this week's target for late-night comedians. Now, Democrats are doing everything they can to distance themselves from McKinney, including canceling the rally. It wasn't public pressure that caused the cancellation, said Democratic Party Chairman Henry Bright. It was the fact that McKinney was becoming too much of a distraction from the original reason they put on the rally: fair elections. McKinney is in town to promote "American Blackout," a movie she stars in that accuses Longboat Key Republican Katherine Harris of helping Republicans steal the 2000 presidential election for President George W. Bush.” - http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article
In yet another display of gutlessness, cowardice and milksop wishy-washiness, Democrats in Florida cancelled a rally to promote a film the intrepid Congresswoman from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney appeared in that focuses on the role of former Florida secretary of State, current US Congresswoman and US Senate candidate Katherine Harris and her role in the theft of the 2000 presidential election. The spineless Florida Democrats taking their cue from their amoeba party members, are shunning McKinney because they are too sissified and afraid to stand with her and support her as the fascist NeoCons target her for elimination. Makes you wonder if local and national Democrats won’t back one of their own who has steadily maintained a reputation as a grassroots champion for working class folks everywhere and one who addresses unpopular issues and raises cogent questions about policy; how vigorously will they fight for the interests of their traditional party constituents? Democrats have dropped Cynthia McKinney just like they abandoned organized labor in their time of need, just like they shy away from Civil Rights advocacy opting to pander to the right. Perhaps thinking people, people who want and need elected representatives to fight on their behalf should turn our backs on and drop those Democrats who are out of sync with our views on issues like perpetual imperialist wars under the guise of Bu$h’s bogus War on Terror, while facilitating class warfare here in AmeriKKKa via the attempted demolition of the social welfare system while expanding corporate welfare and funneling money we don’t have into military- industrial- pharmacological-prison complex boondoggles that benefit relatively few AmeriKKKans. The Democrats seem to relish their reputation for being punks. Why would anyone in their right mind continue to affiliate with or support a political party that has demonstrates gutlessness and a lack of moral fortitude? Food for thought .
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“The immigration policy of Democrats is penalizing the struggle for jobs by poor Americans, so that future votes from illegal aliens they hope to make citizens, will enlarge their voting constituencies. Thus, Democratic politicians have joined forces with wealthy Republican employers who desire what amounts to slave labor. The surge of foreign workers (legal and illegal) has depressed wages for low-skilled workers, and especially for black and Hispanic youths who make up 70% of dropouts. Immigration redistributes wealth away from workers toward employers. This is what the Senate immigration bill is all about – a corporate strategy to keep wages low and the Democrats in office go right along with the program – which is another sellout of the worker, the very workers they supposedly represent.”- Robert Chapman http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/trainwreck.
Is it me or are the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot on just about every issue imaginable? The went limp wrist and MIA in their support of US Senator Russ Finegold’s Bill to Censure George W Bu$h, they are absolute punks in not supporting Cynthia McKinney and now they are actually taking sides with right wing Republicans on the immigration issue in the hope the flocking immigrants will join the Democratic Party. If the immigrants both illegal and otherwise know what I know, they will shun both political parties because, it’s sad to admit what George Wallace lamented almost forty years ago is true, there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between the two major parties. Opening the borders will cause working class folks’ wages and lifestyles to suffer as immigrants will work for less and not demand health and welfare benefits. It puts the working poor in this country in a Catch 22 position, college and other forms or post secondary education, are steadily moving beyond their means, which will result in them remaining in low skilled, low wage jobs if and the operative word here is if they can stave off the inevitable competition from the waves of immigrants coming into the country. Hi tech positions are being shipped overseas and many assembly type jobs are now being done by prison labor which means even fewer jobs for Joe and Jane Sixpack. To make matters worse, the front running Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden are not standing up for their AmeriKKKan working class constituents on these issues. Regarding Iraq and Iran they are warmongers just like Bu$h only they couch their bloodlust in multi-lateral terms and jingoistic doublespeak. They get their marching orders from the Council on Foreign relations, the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberger Group just like Bu$h so don’t expect much in the form of policy changes or peace initiatives from either of them.
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“While politicians fight over air time, and report after report is issued, the mostly Black residents of the city (especially those who dwelled in the lower 9th Ward) are spread across the country, fighting FEMA for housing funds, seeking jobs, trying to put their lives together.Meanwhile, corporate and city planning agencies are writing off vast areas of the 9th, and planning for a New New Orleans, one that will be, shall we say, a good deal less chocolate. Many former residents are crunched into tiny hotel rooms, some are squeezed into private homes, some are even homeless, while 100,000 trailers acquired by FEMA stand idle, empty, unused. It is a telling measure of social and class difference, that when so many people are living in such distress, the white corporate media goes into a silly cycle because the city’s mayor told a group of Katrina survivors that New Orleans would be a 'chocolate city' again.” Mumia Abu Jamal
One of the results of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is, the city of New Orleans will be regentrified. The Hurricane is being used to reshape the landscape of The Big Easy as jailed freedom fighter and liberation journalist Mumia Abu Jamal pointed out in one of his recent articles. “A recent study on the future of New Orleans suggests that the 'New' New Orleans will be whiter, and wealthier than the city which was struck by the winds and waters of Katrina. The study, headed by John R. Logan, entitled “The Impact of Katrina: Race and Class in Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods” (www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf), shows how 80% of black New Orleanians may never return. Indeed, nearly 50% of white working class residents may not return either. Logan, a sociology professor at Brown University reports that local and state political and business leaders are looking to make sure that New Orleans has a new constituency -- one whiter and wealthier than those who came before.” I suggest you download this study. It is worthwhile reading because it looks at Katrina’s impact on New Orleans through the prism of race and class, a perspective the Republican controlled Congress, Senate and the gate keepers of the corporate mind control apparatus certainly don’t want AmeriKKKans to share.
Shortly after the disaster I wrote that the Bu$h administration and FEMA used the hurricane to engage in ethnic cleansing in New Orleans. They used the situation ( which I still feel may have been caused or exacerbated using HAARP technology) as a dry run for a militarily lock down of a major urban area. Mercenaries, National Guardsmen with orders to shoot to kill and massive relocation and displacement have reduced the city’s black population significantly! Skewered media coverage designed to demonize poor blacks who were not able to evacuate the city helped set the psychological sage for such a maneuver. The Brown University Study clearly indicates the storm and the failure of government on all levels to respond appropriately will lead to a “New” New Orleans.
“Closer inspection of neighborhoods within New Orleans shows that some affluent white neighborhoods were hard hit, while some poor minority neighborhoods were spared. Yet if the post-Katrina city were limited to the population previously living in areas that were undamaged by the storm – that is, if nobody were able to return to damaged neighborhoods – New Orleans is at risk of losing more than 80% of its black population. This means that policy choices affecting who can return, to which neighborhoods, and with what forms of public and private assistance, will greatly affect the future character of the city.”- John R. Logan Professor of Sociology, Brown University Director, Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences.
Dig this, New Orleans is at risk of not having 80% of its African-American population return to the city. If that’s not ethnic cleaning I don’t know what is! When you consider the fact Michael Brown the head of FEMA who was made to fall guy and scapegoat in all this, informed Bu$h the levy system was in danger and there is a taped video teleconference to prove it, the whole debacle takes on a more nefarious flavor. Did they deliberately allow the levies to be breached and then willfully withhold aid to the residents of new Orleans? Things that make you go, Hmm?
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US Prison Rates Continue To Climb Incarceration is Big Business
US Prison Rates Continue To Climb Incarceration is Big Business “America currently stands accused of acting as the world's jailer in its War on Terror. It is under fire for allegedly running secret jails in other countries, far from public scrutiny. From Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, activists say the US is trampling on human rights in its pursuit of terror suspects. But the roots of the problem may be closer to home, as suggested by words attributed to former Pennsylvania prison guard Charles Graner - ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses - which came out during court testimony. ‘The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.’”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4858580.stm
The world is watching as AmeriKKKa rapidly morphs into a prison police state at home and a corporatist fascist rogue state internationally. Humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International and The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons have concluded the United States is the world’s largest prison society, jailing and incarcerating more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. AmeriKKKa warehouses more of its citizens than nations like Russia, South Africa, Poland, England or China. The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons will release its’ report on prison conditions in about eight weeks. It is expected the report will reveal massive over crowding, rampant violence and abuses nation wide. Anyone familiar with AmeriKKKan culture should not be shocked at these findings. AmeriKKKa is the most violent nation in the world, it has a history of terrorism and abuse against its “citizens” of color especially the Native Americans against whom they have an ongoing program of genocide, Africans and their descendants and a host of immigrants since its inception as a sovereign nation. AmeriKKKa currently incarcerates over two point one million of its citizens in federal, state and local (county and city) prisons with the number is growing daily.
Privately owned and publicly traded corporate prisons are a growth industry in AmeriKKKa at a time when even according to the government’s own figures violent crimes are decreasing! One of the reasons for the growth in both public and private prisons in addition to a plethora of draconian laws that authorize mandatory prison sentences is the productivity these prisons generate by working the prisoners for a pittance or in some cases, for free. The roots of prison labor are an integral part of AmeriKKKan history,
“Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of ‘hiring out prisoners’ was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then ‘hired out’ for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of ‘hired-out’ miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972. During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. ‘Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex,’ comments the Left Business Observer.” http://www.granma.cu/INGLES/2005/octubre/juev13/42carceles.html
Free prision labor is so lucrative the US Army is getting into the act having recently enacted provisions for Army prison labor camps using federal prisoners and a few “pilot programs” of state and local prisoners. Even without the Army prison camps ,federal prisoners’ free labor accounts for much of the production of military equipment in use today.
“According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.” http://www.granma.cu
That is just the tip of the iceberg. Private prisons are a booming growth industry raking in huge profits on Wall Street trading.
“The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates. Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, ‘the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.’ The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for ‘good behavior,’ but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost ‘good behavior time’ at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.” http://www.granma.cu
The problem with CCA system is too few guards monitoring too many prisoners a situation that could lead to wide scale abuses due to lack of supervision.
“Gary Harkins, is an officer at the maximum security Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, and also a member of Corrections USA, a group which represents about 120,000 prison guards and opposes the growing number of private prisons. Mr Harkins says OSP works on a ‘direct supervision’ basis, encouraging officers to have interpersonal contact with inmates. This, he says, reduces the threat of violence and makes for a safer institution for both inmates and staff, who are armed with only a radio, a whistle, and a pair of handcuffs. He told the CSAAP inquiry: ‘Unfortunately, new prisons are being built to minimize the number of staff, both in architectural design and by using technologies such as remote cameras and sensor systems. This dehumanizes the inmates and staff alike. I also believe that you need to take the effort of actually walking among the inmates and engaging them in conversation. Unfortunately, with the drastic cutbacks in educational and vocational programs we are currently experiencing, this is becoming a harder task.’” http://news.bbc.co.uk Unfortunately information like this is only reported in the foreign press not the US corporate sock puppets disguising themselves as news and information agencies.
AmeriKKKa is in the process of building even more holding facilities. A subsidiary of Haliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root recently was granted a multi- million dollar “contract” to build “immigrant emergency detention centers”?! What’s that about? Why does the US government anticipate the need for such detention facilities? Given the long history of slave and prison labor in AmeriKKKa and the abuses we have witness by US military personnel in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and other places around the world, is there any doubt those abuses will not replicate themselves here as the US prison population continues to skyrocket? Incarceration is big business. The more prisons they build, the more prisoners they’ll need. Beware the growing AmeriKKKan gulag.
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Demonizing Cynthia McKinney
Demonizing Cynthia McKinney “Washington -- Under increasing pressure from House Democratic leaders, Rep. Cynthia McKinney took to the House floor Thursday to apologize for an incident in which she allegedly assaulted a Capitol police officer at a security checkpoint. Since the incident last week, not one of McKinney's fellow 200 House Democratic colleagues had publicly defended her conduct in the incident, in which the African American representative from Georgia claims she was the victim of racial profiling at an entrance to the Longworth House Office Building. ” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.
The weasels in the corporate mind control apparatus and the nefarious NeoCon and Zionist hatchetmen are engaged in another witch hunt to demonize and vilify Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Miss McKinney has long been a thorn in their sides, her boldness, honesty, integrity and incorruptibility upsets them and makes them extremely nervous. Her willingness to stand up against powerful special interests groups and the Bu$h administration (which many people think are one and the same), speak truth to power and question their motives and policies have made her numerous enemies around the country. The proof of her independent thinking and courage is the fact the reprehensible cowards in the Democratic Party are trying to distance themselves from her lest their handlers, bag people and puppeteers think they too have a sliver of integrity and real love of country. Following 9-11 and NeoCon attempts to muzzle any debate on the direction the fascistic Chicken Hawks in the Bu$h administration were leading this country, Cynthia McKinney dared to ask the question “Did George W. Bu$h have foreknowledge of 9-11?” For asking that question she was immediately vilified, castigated and attacked by the corporate media sycophants and the fascists within the Republican Party. Her Democratic Party colleagues were too sissified to even mount a defense or stand with her in support. When it later was revealed that indeed George W Bu$h had been warned by the CIA, the hell hounds in the corporate media, the Republican and Democratic Parties both acted like they never heard it. None of them offered Miss McKinney an apology nor did they follow up with due diligence about the fact the CIA informed Bu$h about bin-Laden’s plans to attack and Bu$h did nothing to prevent it!
Lo and behold it came to light later that not only had the US CIA warned Bu$h in a Presidential Daily Brief but several other governments including Israel, Germany, France, Egypt Morocco and Russia had also warned the US about pending attacks. Again the corporate owned mind control apparatus suppressed this information and never even bothered to do a follow up on the stories where they demonized her or attempted to exonerate Miss McKinney in any way. True to her calling, Cynthia McKinney kept pressing on anyhow. Her candor, compassion and sense of fairness soon got her in more difficulty, this time with the omnipresent and powerful Israeli lobby American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC). McKinney and another black Congressman, Earl Hilliard of Alabama were targeted for defeat by the Zionist lobby and rabid Jewish PAC for having the audacity to suggest the US take a more even handed and fair approach to the Israeli-Palestinian question! Again it appears Miss McKinney was on the right side of the issue as there is a brouhaha going on now about the impact of the Zionist lobby in influencing AmeriKKKan foreign policy. “Hilliard and McKinney join a long list of politicians who were defeated after advocating an independent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East: Senators Charles Percy, James Abourezk, James Abdnor, and J. William Fulbright, and Representatives Paul Findley and Paul McCloskey. The careers of Adlai Stevenson and William Scranton were similarly ended after they supported a Middle East policy less tied to the interests of Israel. Only Michigan's veteran Representative John Dingell was able to stave off a recent assault from the powerful American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) in a match off with fellow Representative Lynn Rivers in a redrawn congressional district.” Crushing Congressional Dissent: The Fall of Hilliard, Barr and McKinney by Wayne Madsen http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen0822.html. Prior to the NeoCons and Zionists ganging up on her, McKinney had survived an attempt to oust her via redistricting. Her set back was short lived as she returned to Congress as feisty and iconoclastic as ever in 2004. She refused to not make waves and has waded into areas her more frightened Democratic colleagues wouldn’t dare tread, such as attending the Republican controlled House hearing on Hurricane Katrina or grilling General Myers and the Secretary of Defense about the live and simultaneous military and emergency management exercises that occurred on 9-11 and what if any impact they had on the failures to protect the nation that day?!
For these and other reasons, the powers that be (the mainstream media and NeoCon- Zionist cabal) are out to get Cynthia McKinney. The media is spinning the latest flap where she avoided the metal detectors in the Capital Building and pushed a Capital Police officer with her cell phone when he tried to grab her as some sort of indication of her instability or eccentricity. She has since apologized but even some of her jelly spined Democratic Party colleagues have been quoted as if she was some sort of major felon. Here is the slant of one paper on the affair,
“The House's top Democrat, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, distanced herself from McKinney and publicly expressed increasing exasperation Thursday just before McKinney issued her apology. McKinney's case had become a distraction for Democrats, who want to keep the focus on what they see as a corrupt and ineffective Republican-led Congress symbolized by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who announced his resignation earlier this week. The incident with McKinney began when she tried to go around a security checkpoint, as members of Congress are entitled to do. She wasn't wearing her members' lapel pin, and it appears an officer did not recognize her. She was challenged, but didn't stop. When an officer tried to stop her, and apparently touched her, McKinney allegedly struck the officer in front of witnesses. As the furor over the incident mounted in recent days, a federal grand jury was convened to consider possible charges against McKinney involving assaulting an officer. Witnesses to the incident, including an aide to Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, testified Thursday before the grand jury. McKinney, who has been embroiled in other controversies in her six House terms, tried to defuse the latest incident with Thursday's remarks. ‘There should not have been any physical contact in this incident,’ McKinney said in a one-minute statement on the House floor. ‘I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation and I apologize," she added, surrounded by a small group of Democrats, including Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland. Just an hour earlier, Pelosi made it clear that McKinney -- who since the incident has appeared daily on TV talk shows to publicize her claims of racial prejudice by the Capitol police...” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article
I find this truly amazing. I don’t remember House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi or any of the other 433 House members getting this worked up about the invasion of Iraq or the fact Bu$h lied about it, or the NSA spying situation or the spiraling and out of control federal deficits. Come on, lets prioritize the real issues here. Notice the only other Congress critter mentioned in the article who supported Miss McKinney was Barbara Lee of Oakland the only member of Congress who voted against the invasion of Afghanistan, seems like good company to me.
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