Fear Not
Fear Not “In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was - an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary - the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction. Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration's rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up - perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base's older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general. And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.” Fearing Fear Itself By Paul Krugman The New York Times http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102907A.shtml
Cunning, devious people motivated by a lower consciousness figured out a long time ago, the best way to manipulate the masses is to induce in them either an irrational fear, an unfounded dread by fomenting unease, anxiety and terror or by subjecting them to experiences so horrific and harsh they constantly feared for their very safety or lives. So they subjected them to physical and/or psychological torture, abuse and attack. Their lower consciousness manifests in their abhorrent personal and collective behaviors. To create fear in the masses they manufacture bogeymen and enemies where none exist or they magnify and distort situations for their own agenda. Our kidnapped African ancestors lived in constant fear of the European captives and their agents which included the local and national governments.
“The third step in the training of slaves was to awe them with a sense of their master’s enormous power. The only principle upon which slavery could be maintained, reported a group of Charlestonians, was the ‘principle of fear.’... Here than was the way to produce the perfect slave; accustom him to rigid discipline, demand from him unconditional submission, impress upon him his innate inferiority, develop in him a paralyzing fear of white men, train him to adopt the master’s code of good behavior and instill in him a sense of complete dependence. This at least was the goal.” Kenneth M Stampp,
The Peculiar Institution page 146, 148
The sons and now the daughters of those who possessed a lower consciousness of fear, greed, warmongering and murder, who employed their benighted consciousness to create a culture of fear and abuse are attempting to maintain that psychological environment in today’s world. Only this time they want us to be afraid of a group of amorphous terrorists their propaganda machine calls “Islamo-fascists” This is absurd, there is no such thing. It is the figment of a NeoCon propagandists psychotic mind. Keep in mind a generation ago their fathers and their mind control apparatus told us it was the communists we were to dread. It was the godless communists over there who provided the pretext for the politicians to appropriate inordinate amounts of our tax dollars on weapons of mass destruction so we could “defend” ourselves against the communist threat of global domination. The problem with that scenario was, historically it was not the communists alone who were attempting to dominate the world. The US had assumed the mantel of the West as the dominate European imperialist power in the world.
For the last six years the Bu$h administration has used 9-11 (which as most serious thinkers and researchers know was an inside job) as their trump card and pretext to launch a series of invasions (in Afghanistan and Iraq) to steal the resources of these countries and use their strategic location as a base for a much wider imperialist agenda. Bu$h and Co have also initiated proxy wars in places like Somalia and Sudan to gain a toehold in these countries in order to steal their oil. To do this they’ve had to lie and induce massive fear in the AmeriKKKan populous, they had to make us believe we were under attack and the constant threat of future attacks. Whenever Joe and Jane Sixpack begin to clear their head and think lucidly about what is going on, the Bu$hites trot out another video or audio of Osama bin-Laden to terrorize the people; which is a neat trick since bin-Laden has been dead for several years now.
Fear is their primary major tool, they have become first class fear mongers using their buddies and cohorts in the corporate media to beat the drums for more fear and more war. Like attracts like, the lower consciousness of the ruling elites and the rewards they can bestow attracts others who vibrate on the same mental and emotional frequencies. The fearful, the greedy, the covetous, outer directed people in search for externalized wealth and power are their prey and soul mates. Once the ruling elites get them in their web, they use fear to influence and entrap them to go along with their policies, they use their fear of what people will say about them, the fear their deepest secrets and foibles will be exposed, the fear of being ostracized, fear of being cut off from the riches the elites provide or the fear of being murdered to coerce and manipulate people to do what they say.
Is the world a dangerous place? Yes if you believe it to be. The world is as you say it is, your reality is what you perceive it to be. We each have the power of discernment, cogitation and imagination with which we can create our reality. That doesn’t mean that your reality is my reality because there are as many ways to see a thing as there are people to see it. Community means we generally share the same or similar realities because our culture is based upon our common consciousness, how we deal with and within the reality we have created and share. The question becomes do you have the courage of your convictions. Do you have the will and perseverance to project and live your unique reality if it differs from George W. Bu$h’s and the NeoCon’s? Do you have the courage, fortitude and tenacity to reject the false reality propagated by CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal et al? Are you confident enough in your own powers of cogitation, perceptiveness, reasoning and intuition to stand up for yourself and assert your independence of thought and emotion?
If you acquiesce to fear mongers and warmongers like Bu$h the NeoCons the world becomes a scary place. Fear is the portal to the dark side, there a host of other negative ideation and emotions await you. That’s exactly what they want. If they make you fearful, meaning you are full of fear they have won half the battle because then they can then induce you to do anything, as we have seen throughout history. If you have a heart for peace and you are working to develop a higher consciousness, you are not fooled by the Bu$hes and Cheneys of this world. In fact you pity their psychotic state of mind and the pernicious influence they have on our fellow humans. More importantly you realize you must work to offer another view of the world not just by your rhetoric but also your example.
All is not lost. We can alter the world but first we must alter ourselves. This is a monumental undertaking, one we cannot successfully accomplish if we are burdened and weighed down with fear and uncertainty.
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Welcome To The Horrors of Bu$honomics
Welcome To the Horrors of Bu$honomics “The Street is betting the FOMC meeting this month will bring lower interest rates. That is based on lower economic numbers, a continuing credit squeeze at banks and Greenspan’s comment that the real estate crisis and house prices will fall a lot further than people think. Cheap money is now history. The days of big leveraged buyouts are over because the CLO market is dead. Banks won’t lend to each other for more than a week. The current situation is more systemic than the crisis in 1998. It effects far more institutions and will have a far greater impact on the global economy. Those who believe we will get a recovery as in 1999 are mistaken. We are facing a property collapse and hyperinflation. This is also worse than October 1987. This time the dollar has hit record lows and gold and silver are rallying in spite of official suppression. This is January 2001 all over again or October 1929. The US is the biggest debtor in history with external liabilities reaching 35% of GDP. Foreigners are not buying our Treasury paper and that means the Fed will have to buy the bonds, monetize them, and we will have even more inflation. Dropping interest rates won’t work – only a purge will and the elitists do not want to face that. Thus, they will inflate until they cannot anymore.” Bob Chapman’s The International Forecaster 10-06-07 http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/item.php?articleid=201&topicId
On the macro-economic level the Fed and its fellow central banks around the world are attempting feverishly to stave off a collapse of the economic system as the worsening US mortgage crisis spreads around the world. Alas anything they do will be too little too late and will have a devastating impact on the micro-economic level. This means it will effect our pocketbooks in a very painful way. The picture now and the forecast for the short and intermediate terms are not good. We already see how hard it is to make ends meets. In fact the ends are getting even farther apart every month.
“NEW YORK (AP) - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner. Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) (WMT), 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc. (FDO) (FDO) Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help. While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade.” http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071019/D8SCH2701.html
Anyone who is remotely self-sufficient working and on their own, married with a family or head of a household knows, this is not a news flash. Scuffling and scratching to make ends meet is not something new for Black folks. When white AmeriKKKa was experiencing an economic updraft in the late ‘90's, for the most part we missed it. While there have been major improvements in the bank balances of many Black folks, for the most part we missed out on the rise in millionaires and we tend to be on the minus side of the widening income divide.
“Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans - those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 - receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows. The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression. While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent. The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent. The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.” US Income Gap Is Widening Significantly, Data Show by David Cay Johnston http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/29/163/
The ruling elites have rigged the game so they and their cronies live large while the masses are forced to scuffle just to keep their heads above water. Bu$h’s tax cuts for the super rich our Congress critters made permanent have done irreparable damage to AmeriKKKa’s fiscal health and stability. But this is part of their program to radically restructure the wealth-poverty imbalance in favor of the super rich. To accomplish this the Bu$hites have cut appropriations to Social Welfare programs while providing the most generous government largess (corporate welfare) to their friends in the, banking, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, defense and security industries. Even the Congress knows this is true.
“Under the Bush Administration, the ‘shadow government’ of private companies working under federal contract has exploded in size. Between 2000 and 2005, procurement spending increased by over $175 billion dollars, making federal contracts the fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending. This growth in federal procurement has enriched private contractors. But it has also come at a steep cost for federal taxpayers. Overcharging has been frequent, and billions of dollars of taxpayer money have been squandered.” Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1071
Couple the open private contractor hole Bu$h’s wars without end are shoveling our tax dollars into with the waste, fraud and corruption that has become the hallmark of the Bu$h administration and you can see why the government is broke!
“Federal procurement spending is highly concentrated on a few large contractors, with the five largest federal contractors receiving over 20% of the contract dollars awarded in 2005. Last year, the largest federal contractor, Lockheed Martin, received contracts worth more than the total combined budgets of the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Congress. The fastest growing contractor under the Bush Administration has been Halliburton. Federal spending on Halliburton contracts increased over 600% between 2000 and 2005. Dollars, Not Sense is based on a review of over 500 reports, audits, and investigations by government and independent bodies, such as the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and agency inspectors general. It also draws on interviews with experts, the Special Investigation Division’s own extensive investigations, data from the Federal Procurement Data System, and investigative reporting. In addition to analyzing the mammoth increase in federal contract spending, Dollars, Not Sense provides the first government-wide estimate of the number and value of “problem contracts” under the Bush Administration. The report is accompanied by a searchable database of problem contracts.” Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1071
On the personal level AmeriKKKans are incurring more and more debt until we are now defined by the mounds of debt we owe. Granted part of it is our fault for trying to keep up with the proverbial “Jones” and purchasing ourselves into oblivion. But we have been duped and programmed into it by the government, the banks, credit card companies and the media. “
Having been miseducated to the point where they cannot think rationally, Americans began using their houses as cash machines, refinancing as they went. In 2005, private households raised $1,080 billion through mortgages. Of this amount, they only spent $95.1 billion on higher-priced homes. Spending on goods and services rose in total by $539.9 billion, relative to an increase in disposable income of only $354.5 billion. In other words, about one-third of the increase in consumer spending was based on home mortgage borrowing. The real estate bubble began to burst in the third quarter of 2005, with mortgage borrowing peaking at $1,225.9 billion per annum. Falling steadily, by the second quarter of 2006, borrowing on home equity was down to $819.6 billion. Some of this sharp decline was also caused by increases in consumer credit costs.” Economic Cannibalism http://www.new-enlightenment.com/econ_crash.htm
The ruling elites are juggling the interest rates in an effort to prevent the major banks around the world from going belly up. But their actions will sink the US dollar even further. What this means is the few dollars we possess will be worth less and less so we will need more and more of them (hyperinflation) to buy a fraction of what we used to be able to purchase. We see this now as we experience skyrocketing prices, especially for food and energy. Couple this with stagnant wages and rising unemployment (the government’s unemployment figures are deliberately under reported) and the economic picture for Joe and Jane Sixpack is ominous; so you know Pookie and Shaneyney are catching holy hell. Unfortunately this is going to get progressively worse. When you couple hyperinflation with the, mortgage crisis, the credit crunch and daily stock market roller coaster rides you will probably see many of your 401K and pension funds decimated, and the future begins to look really bleak. The ruling elites know this, that is why they are gearing up mercenaries and private armies for domestic use just in case folks get a little too upset and take their angst and frustration out on the government.
Now the ruling elites and their Neocon puppets find themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place economy wise. The situation is especially tenuous for them now as much of the world seeing the imperialist fascism gripping the Bu$h administration is wisely moving to protect themselves economically by replacing the sinking US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Watch as more and more countries like Russia, China and Latin American nations forge economic, political and military alliances to protect themselves from the ravages and rapine of Uncle Sam and distance themselves from the US dollar as the AmeriKKKan empire implodes. The masses in AmeriKKKa are caught in a vortex of economic Karma that must play itself out. Unless there is a major paradigm shift on both the macro and the microeconomic fronts, it really doesn’t look good for working class and poor people in AmeriKKKa. This is the real skinny on Bu$honomics the talking heads in the corporate media will never tell you.
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They're Infiltrating Our Babies'Minds
They’re Infiltrating Our Babies' Mind “Today, the most intensely targeted demographic is the baby—the future consumer. Before an average American child is twenty months old, he can recognize the McDonald’s logo and many other branded icons. Nearly everything a toddler encounters—from Band-Aids to underpants—features the trademarked characters of Disney or other marketing empires. Although this target market may not be in a position to exercise its preferences for many years, it pays for marketers to imprint their brands early. General Motors bought a two-page ad in Sports Illustrated for Kids for its Chevy Venture minivan. Their brand manager rationalized that the eight-to-fourteen-year-old demographic consists of “back-seat consumers.”3 The real intention of target marketing to children and babies, however, goes deeper. The fresh neurons of young brains are valuable mental real estate to admen. By seeding their products and images early, the marketers can do more than just develop brand recognition; they can literally cultivate a demographic’s sensibilities as they are formed. A nine-year-old child who can recognize the Budweiser frogs and recite their slogan (Bud-weis-er) is more likely to start drinking beer than one who can remember only Tony the Tiger yelling, “They’re great!” (Currently, more children recognize the frogs than Tony.) This indicates a long-term coercive strategy. The abstraction of brand images from the products they represent, combined with an increasing assault on our demographically targeted psychological profiles, led to some justifiable consumer paranoia by the 1970s. Advertising was working on us in ways we couldn’t fully understand, and people began to look for an explanation.” Branding Products, Branding People http://www.rushkoff.com/branding.html
I often refer to the corporate media as the corporate mind control apparatus because it is designed to penetrate our psyches and manipulate us via the images, music and message of commercials, news and so called entertainment. The most insidious aspect of all this is the programmers and psychologists who design commercial know exactly what they are doing, they are conditioning us to acquiesce to their programing and their view of "reality". In his classic book
Hidden Persuaders first published in 1957 author Vance Packard revealed just how nefarious the media is. He exposed the psychological techniques and hidden manipulation used by psychologists, advertisers and broadcasters to induce consumers to do what they wanted, buy their clients’ products and vote for their candidates.
“The extent to which the merchandising approach had taken over at the Republican National Headquarters by 1956 was shown by a statement issued by Leonard Hall, national party chairman, explaining why the Republican Party was going to regain control of Congress. He said, among other things, that ‘it has a great product to sell. . . . You sell your candidates and your programs the way a business sells its products.’ The committee's ‘public-relations director, young crew-cut L. Richard Guylay, who had helped pioneer the merchandising approach to politics by handling the image building for a number of Senators, explained that the new scientific methods take the guesswork out of politics and save a lot of wasted time and effort. . . . Len Hall is a great supporter of modern techniques.’In the White House itself the Republicans had a persuader of proven talents in Governor Howard Pyle, deputy assistant to the President just under Sherman Adams. A former ad man from Phoenix, Arizona, he explained that the Republican Party would put its trust, in 1956 as in 1952, in the big New York ad agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn. He explained in late 1955: ‘The Republican Party has long been identified with B.B.D.&O. They represent us at campaign time and all the time in between on a retainer. We're a regular account, and when you get to kicking around the appropriations, it's a valuable account. We have underlying obligations to B.B.D.&O.’ Mr. Pyle in one of his rare public appearances made a foot-in-mouth statement in unemployment-plagued Detroit that "the right to suffer is one of the joys of a free economy.") The B.B.D.&O. executive who is in charge of the GOP ‘account,’ Carroll Newton, proclaims that he is an advertising man, not a politician. Another big account he has supervised is U.S. Steel. He reportedly had forty people on his GOP account. ” From
Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard.
Media psychological manipulation has grown by leaps and bounds since Hidden Persuaders was published in 1957. In fact the hydra of psychological manipulation now permeates all levels of society but their prime target is our children. Our children are in their cross hairs, the younger the better, simply because their developing minds are defenseless against the cunning subliminal messages the media pumps at them on a daily basis.
“To effectively market to children, advertisers need to know what makes kids tick. With the help of well-paid researchers and psychologists, advertisers now have access to in-depth knowledge about children's developmental, emotional and social needs at different ages. Using research that analyzes children's behavior, fantasy lives, art work, even their dreams, companies are able to craft sophisticated marketing strategies to reach young people. The issue of using child psychologists to help marketers target kids gained widespread public attention in 1999, when a group of U.S. mental health professionals issued a public letter to the American Psychological Association (APA) urging them to declare the practice unethical. The APA is currently studying the issue.” How Marketers Target Kids www.reseau-medias.ca/english/parents/marketing/marketers_target_kids.cfm
The really pernicious part is the advertisers and programmers have no scruples, their goal is to capture our children’s minds for the long haul and they are willing to spare no effort or expense doing it.
“Marketers plant the seeds of brand recognition in very young children, in the hopes that the seeds will grow into lifetime relationships. According to the Center for a New American Dream, babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of brand logos. While fast food, toy and clothing companies have been cultivating brand recognition in children for years, adult-oriented businesses such as banks and automakers are now getting in on the act. Magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated and People have all launched kid and teen editions—which boast ads for adult related products such as minivans, hotels and airlines.” ibid
The really alarming fact is young children toddlers cannot distinguish between programming content and commercials. All they know is there are interesting and often life like images on the TV screen, they hear sounds, the music and they conclude all this is real, all this is the same.
“According to Consumer Reports magazine, ‘young children have difficulty distinguishing between advertising and reality in ads, and ads can distort their view of the world.’Research has shown that children between the ages of two and five cannot differentiate between regular TV programming and commercials. Young children are especially vulnerable to misleading advertising and don't begin to understand that advertisements are not always true until they're eight.” Special Issues for Young Children Developmental concerns http://www.reseau-medias.ca/english/parents/marketing/issues_kids_marketing.cfm .
Is there a solution? Can ordinary folks counter the proliferation of media, can we shield our children from the insidious invasion into their psyches? The answer is yes, but it will not be easy. You will have to monitor and screen all the media stimuli you allow into your home especially if you have young children. As your children grow and are exposed to more media stimulation, take the time to explain to them everything they see on television, in the video games and magazines is not true or real. Begin to share with them the need for media scrutiny, sit with them and help them decode the messages they are consuming. Empower them to be savvy media consumers. But to do this successfully, you must be extremely discerning and discriminating regarding the mass media and actively cultivate media savvy yourself.
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Beware Heightened Racial Tensions
Beware Heightened Racial Tensions “This is just some of the recent reports on the return of the painful symbol of the past. Jack and Jill has also been tracking these incidents that have been occurring across the country. So why is it that people feel the can display the noose whenever they feel like it? The answer is easy, the incidents have one thing in common. They are often downplayed and are often labeled a prank. But calling the local incidents the work of pranksters it allows a conspiracy of silence to continue among White people. Regardless if it is a racist ‘ghetto fabulous/south of the border’ type party or hanging nooses, racism isn’t that it offends some people, it supports and strengthens an unjust social system that hurts people.” http://xicanopwr.com/2007/10/mychal-bell-back-in-jail-and-more-nooses-on-the-loose/
The corporate mind control apparatus has it hands full rationalizing the insanity that passes for AmeriKKKan fiscal and foreign “policy” while simultaneously suppressing the truth about what is really going on around the world. So it is no surprise the corporate media has not bothered to mention the rash of hangman’s nooses being sighted around the country. As we know the hangman's noose is a vile symbol of lynching/murder and terror. Africans in AmeriKKKa have lived with the abhorrent and savage reality of torture and terror ever since our kidnapped ancestors were forcibly brought to this hemisphere and subjected to unspeakable atrocities, abuse and degradation. (In my study/studio within eye level on one of my bookshelves I have a copy of
Without Sanctuary Lynching Photography In America documented pictorial evidence of the madness and barbarism that permeated this culture for hundreds of years.) Now the specter of this detestable symbol of AmeriKKKan psycho-pathology is rearing its ugly head again.
We should not be surprised at the resurgence of the hangman’s noose or any other symbols of racial enmity and oppression. Deep seated animosity within the psyche of white AmeriKKKa percolates under the surface of their consciousness just waiting for some stressor or some seemingly “isolated” incident, real or imagined, to provide the pretext for its expression. Even if these noose hangings were being reported in the news, why would we be surprised at the rash of nooses at universities, high schools, in trees and places of employment around the country? (For an update on all the latest noose hangings go to http://jackandjillpolitics.blogspot.com/2007/10/nooses-when-retro-goes-too-far.html ). The noose and lynching are as AmeriKKKan as cherry pie. It is a symbol of Euro-AmeriKKKan psychopathy. It is a manifestation of their own subconscious inadequacies and inferiority complexes, but to justify their psychosis they invented the notion that their pale skin provides a natural entitlement, it legitimatizes violence against melanin endowed people no matter where we are found, under any and all circumstances. A few days ago I wrote and posted a piece entitled
The Columbus Legacy, it is this legacy of rapine, pillage and plunder that is being played out in Iraq, Afghanistan and here at home every day by trigger happy police and psychotic yahoos who hang nooses in public places.
We can expect even more demonstrations of white angst as the US economy worsens, as Joe and Jane Sixpack wake up and discover their homes are worth less and less, when they come to the realization they can’t pay their bills nor their mortgages. Their stress levels will mount as they scrimp and strain to make ends meet only to discover the ends are getting farther and farther apart. As they experience downsizing, default, foreclosure and find themselves living in the street or back with relatives, their ire will rise and they’ll want to take it out on someone. They’ll want to blame someone, anyone other than themselves for the foolish decisions they made to keep up with the proverbial Jones that have landed them in this predicament. If past patterns hold true, they will be easily duped and manipulated into taking their frustrations and angst out on Black folks, Latinos and the proverbial “other”. These whites will be prime candidates to join groups like the Klu Klux Klan or be set up by government agents and paid provocateurs to be used to further the government’s nefarious agendas.
AmeriKKKan white folks have never been too swift discerning how the ruling elites use the notions of religion, race and “national interests” to bamboozle them into fighting other poor people and people of color here and around the world, which is the only way the plutocrats can enrich themselves and remain in power. Talk about being dummied down, brainwashed and subject to the herd mentality, clueless Joe and Jane Sixpack, Booboo and Shanaynay make the mindless automatons in the Stepford Wives movies look like Einsteins.
The Bu$h-Cheney cabal have put AmeriKKKa at grave risk with their imperialistic resource and geo-strategic wars on behalf of multi-national corporations, international bankers and the Zionist lobby, yet the very people with the most to lose, are sitting at home playing video games, watching TV (they don’t call it the idiot box for nothing) or out shopping (running up more debt). They are not holding teach-ins, discussions or planning how to survive the coming economic collapse and US police sate. They are at home or in the malls eating rather than in the streets demonstrating, boycotting and planning protests or civil disobedience demanding the impeachment, trial and sentencing of Bu$h and Cheney as war criminals!
The passivity and cowardice of the AmeriKKKan people with regard to knowing what’s going on and being aware of the criminal activities of the Bu$h-Cheney cabal makes the acquiescence and capitulation of the German people to Hitler’s Nazi Party in the 1930's look tame by comparison; especially given the 20/20 hindsight history provides. If Joe and Jane Sixpack awaken from their media induced stupor look for their anger to be deliberately misdirected at the wrong targets, us. The ruling oligarchy and their puppets in the media and government are very adroit at this; defining the enemies they want us to hate while they laugh all the way to the bank tightening the nooses around our necks as they go. 9-11 and Osama bin-Laden and the Oklahoma City bombing and Timothy McVeigh are classic examples of this. Both of them were patsies and stooges for the CIA and FBI. There is not one scintilla of serious evidence either one of them did what the government claims they did. Do the research yourself and you will discover how they were created as pawns, scapegoats and bogeymen by US police and intelligence agencies. The media then hyped the government accounts to create sensationalism and our fears provided the pretext for the government to ramp up the police state.
The rash of hangman’s nooses appearing around the country could very well be part of a government plot to stir up racial animosity and tension to justify the implementation of Marshall Law, as a pretext to sic Blackwater type goons on the AmeriKKKan people like they did in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I won’t put it past the Bu$h cabal to be behind this rash of noose hangings to create a distraction and diversion from all their failures and crimes or as an excuse ratchet up the police state another notch. It would be similar to how Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon ordered the FBI to implement
COINTELPRO and the CIA to initiate
Operation Chaos against dissent and the AmeriKKKan people. Keep your eyes and ears open, think critically, question everything and in the absence of any strong evidence to the contrary always view current events as a logical progression, the continuation of AmeriKKKa’s real history and legacy of violence.
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The Economics of Perpetual war
The Economics of Perpetual War “We might look at the inflation issue from another angle, in that economists have pointed out that periods of inflation seem to coincide with those of war. The causes of this confluence appear complex and may include price gouging by those who sell to the government, fear and panic which cause people to inflate prices to secure their economic position, a premium built into prices to compensate for a general atmosphere of economic uncertainty, or the sudden influx of new money due to precipitate government borrowing. Probably all these factors play a role. If we look again at the history of price inflation since 1915, we discern a pronounced increase in prices during the periods of World War I and World War II. This would tend to confirm the hypothesis of a link with inflation. But what about the wave of higher inflation since 1965? What is unique about this period is that the nation has been in a state of permanent war mobilization since the Vietnam conflict. A considerable amount of economic research would be needed to test the hypothesis that the high level of defense spending has in fact caused the high inflation, but such a study would be worthwhile. Another hypothesis might be added which would be difficult to measure but which should also be considered. This is that money spent on permanent war mobilization is essentially non-productive in terms of producing goods and services of value to the larger civilian economy; i.e., it has a relatively low multiplier effect. Wartime spending may also be less able to call forth the type of scientific research and development needed to improve the economy in most aspects of everyday life. We never got the 'peace dividend' we were told would result from the end of the Cold War. Instead, the military-industrial complex pressed forward without missing a heartbeat until now the War on Terror and possible future wars against Iran and other nations offer new justification for perpetual war mobilization.” Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6966
When George W Bu$h was campaigning for the presidency in 2000 he spoke repeatedly of the need for enhanced military spending and defense. When I heard that I remember thinking to myself, “What is this man talking about? Why is there a need for more military spending now given the ‘Cold War’ is over?” Now every thing he said back then makes perfect sense. Bu$h was speaking in code to his fellow fascists letting them know what was coming down the pike. He or more importantly his handlers and the NeoCon warmongers were planning to implement their blueprint for the expansion of the AmeriKKKan Empire or what they called “The New American Century”. I suggest you review the documents of the Project For a New American Century’s goal for global hegemony entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses Strategy, Forces and Resources For A New Century at www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf. There you will see the class and ethnic megalomaniacal rationals behind AmeriKKKa’s current “foreign policies” that drive these psychopaths. When you couple this with Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force you can see why things are going the way they are. 9-11 was the timely and convenient pretext they used to launch a program of perpetual global resource wars, Middle Eastern geo-strategic power plays and imperialist Zionist sycophancy the Bu$h administration euphemistically calls
The Global War on Terror. To get the masses (the suckers and yahoos) to go along with their plans they would need a “catastrophic catalyzing event” to shock them out of their normal placidity and passivity and catapult them into a crazed state of senseless revenge. That event was 9-11. The false flag operation called 9-11 allowed them to ramp up an economy that was already top heavy in military spending with no oversight or outcries of dissent.
“The major determinant of the world trend in military expenditure is the change in the USA, which makes up 47 per cent of the world total. US military expenditure has increased rapidly during the period 2002–2004 as a result of massive budgetary allocations for the ‘global war on terrorism’, primarily for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. These have been funded through supplementary appropriations on top of the regular budget. The supplementary appropriations for this purpose allocated to the Department of Defense for financial years 2003–2005 amounted to approximately $238 billion and exceeded the combined military spending of Africa, Latin America, Asia (except Japan but including China) and the Middle East in 2004 ($193 billion in current dollars), that is, of the entire developing world. Thus, while regular military spending has also increased in the USA as well as in several other countries and regions, the main explanation for the current level of and trend in world military spending is the spending on military operations abroad by the USA, and to a lesser extent by its coalition partners.” http://yearbook2005.sipri.org/ch8/ch8
Keep in mind that was a 2005 report. The military gets even more inordinate funding every year. As we see every year the Bu$h administration and the spineless Democratic go-alongs in Congress are willing to sink AmeriKKKa deeper and deeper in debt to keep their beneficiaries in the military-industrial-technology complex and the private bankers afloat.
“While FY 2008 budget requests for US military spending are known, for most other countries, the most recent data is from 2005 (at time of writing). Using US spending at that time, we can compare US military spending with the rest of the world: The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total. The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender. The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six ‘rogue’ states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion. It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations. The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea) The six potential ‘enemies,’ Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget.” www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/
In his booklet War Is A Racket published in 1935 Major General Smedley D. Butler said
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.” http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
This is the pattern, this is the scam, it is a continuation of what has always happened after a major war. Since WWII the US ruling elites and their banker buddies decided to remain on a permanent war footing and have invented a series of bogeymen and enemies to keep the con game going. In his 1961 farewell speech President Dwight D Eisenhower warned about the insidiousness of what he called the Military Industrial complex. “
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.” Too bad we didn’t heed Eisenhower’s warning. Today we see just how pernicious the military-industrial-technology-financial consortium really is. The ruling elites are out to make a fortune off of their warmongering. If you doubt what I’m saying look at the profits of the Carlyle Group! But ultimately a permanent war economy is self-defeating as a cursory review of all Western Empires will show.
“Another hypothesis might be added which would be difficult to measure but which should also be considered. This is that money spent on permanent war mobilization is essentially non-productive in terms of producing goods and services of value to the larger civilian economy; i.e., it has a relatively low multiplier effect. Wartime spending may also be less able to call forth the type of scientific research and development needed to improve the economy in most aspects of everyday life. We never got the 'peace dividend' we were told would result from the end of the Cold War. Instead, the military-industrial complex pressed forward without missing a heartbeat until now the War on Terror and possible future wars against Iran and other nations offer new justification for perpetual war mobilization.” Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
From the spiritual and sociological perspectives the war mongers are leading us all over an abyss. “Jayantha Dhanapala, former UN under secretary-general for disarmament affairs, says the rising global military expenditure is not just diverting precious financial, material and human resources from productive to non-productive pursuits, but also jeopardizing the environment and the prospects for social and economic development.” ibid.
This is where the world currently finds itself. Ths trend will continue until it causes a major implosion given the hubris of the ruling elites and the apathy and cowardice of the AmeriKKKan masses.
“The economic question is whether a society permanently at war or always preparing for war has the ability to overcome the natural entropy that will make its production processes less efficient over time. If it cannot, then no amount of reform can solve its problems. We know that no culture in history which has had warfare as its main preoccupation has long survived, unless and until it has seen the error of its ways and changed, or unless it simply was destroyed. Ancient Greece never really recovered after the Peloponnesian Wars. The debt-riddled, socially-stratified Roman Empire exhausted itself in a blaze of military conflict, then saw defeat and dissolution. The British Empire went bankrupt in a single generation from 1914 to 1945. The U.S. is teetering on the edge of a major financial collapse right now. In fact, those with money are quietly trying to secure their wealth while the unfortunate ones who are heavily mortgaged or locked into inflexible retirement accounts may be left holding the bag. Can the American Empire survive the economic forces that doomed the empires of the past? Or will what some call the ‘New American Century’ turn into the ‘No American Century’?" Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6966
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13th Annual International Locks Conference Is A huge Success
13th Annual International Locks Conference Is A Huge Success The thirteenth annual natural hair, health and beauty conference known as the
International Locks Conference was held this past weekend at the Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partnership Charter School located at 910 N 6th Street in Philadelphia. The two day conference attracted participants, exhibitors and presenters from all over the country and offered a venue where people of African descent can come to celebrate, honor, enhance and learn about their natural beauty. Each year the conference expands and attempts to raise the bar and expectations by bringing exciting new hair stylists, fashions, natural skin and beauty products created by people of African descent while simultaneously hosting informative and thought provoking workshops on a variety of holistic health, wellness and beauty related topics. In addition the workshops, stylists, natural products there were authors, vegetarian food vendors and wholesome activities for young people. The conference i a family affair that celebrates being, well, nappy and natural.
Mama Akosua Ali-Sabree and her family have carried on the vision and legacy of Sharon L. Goodman the founder since her transition to the ancestral spirit realm several years ago. Akosua, her family and a dedicated cadre of supporters and staff make the International Locks Conference one of the largest and truly most outstanding African Centered cultural and beauty events in the country. This year’s theme was Consciousness Rising and the planners and organizers certainly actualized the theme in the 2007 conference. Mama Akosua is a perfectionist who always wants to put her best foot forward and represent African people in a way that honors us and the ancestors. She was pleased with this year’s conference despite the hard work. “It’s easier on one hand to put it together once we get the logistics and space together. The challenge is keeping it fresh. We really work to get new vendors without eliminating the old vendors because a lot of people come to the conference specifically looking for certain vendors, so getting the right mix of people and allowing the craftsmen and artists to be in the mix and maintaining that balance is important because a lot of people think it’s all about making money. So if there are two vendors doing the same thing we can’ have that. We try to honor everybody and what they are doing. So the human interaction can be challenging but the event itself is exhilarating. There are people who come here just to be in the positive energy. There are people who come to make an event of it, they come from out of town, they book a hotel and there are vendors who come every year who come because they do well and they say we are stepping it up every year.” Mama Akosua shared.
The hard work pays off because the expectations are high and the expectations manifest in a their execution and a heightened enjoyment for all concerned. “They expect us to step it up and we get a satisfaction from that. The people who expect it to step up get satisfied because we are on task with that. The ones who come just to be in the energy are thrilled just to be here, the others who come whose expectations are not high, who think we are going to be late or things like that are surprised when they come and experience the conference.”
The use of the Walter D Palmer Charter School was a first, and it turned out to be a perfect fit logistically. Activities were held both indoors and outside in the school yard. The weather was good so people could easily flow in and out to partake of all the conferences’ exhibits, vendors and activities. The planners experienced larger crowds this year and the spacial logistics and flow were more to Mama Akousua’s liking. “Because Monday is a so called holiday more people are coming out. The conference is always the first weekend in October because this is the last event after the summer vending season and many venders and exhibitors are looking for an event between the summer and the winter vending seasons. The only thing I would do differently is have the food inside. Other than that this is the closest to what I would have if we had our own spot. For the most part I’m satisfied. The feedback has been good and overall I don’t have anything to complain about.”
The International Locks Conference is the oldest and largest event of its kind in the country. From the look and success of the 2007 conference, this trend will continue well into the future. Mama Akosua Ali-Sabree and the Kuumba Family Organizing Committee plan all year long to make the event successful. So if you want to be a participant in next year’s conference go to www.locksconference.com or call 888 305-6186.
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The Columbus Legacy
The Columbus Legacy “Since Columbus has his vocal supporters, it becomes easy for many to ignore the troublesome calls for reevaluation and to simply dismiss the question raised in the banner carried in protest at the Springfield parade: Why celebrate genocide and slavery? Those who make the effort to educate themselves about the reality behind the Columbus myth, however, are typically shocked by what they find--a common reaction among students studying the Columbus Quincentennial. Part of the shock relates to Columbus himself, who was directly and personally responsible for the enslavement, torture, mutilation and murder of thousands of Indians of the Caribbean islands he and his brothers ruled. Most of these atrocities occurred after Columbus' first voyage in 1492, when he returned again and again to search for gold. Part of the shock goes beyond Columbus himself to the legacy he left for those who extended his policies: the institutionalization of slavery and mass murder of the Indians; the slavery of millions of Africans stolen from their homes and brought here to produce riches for Europeans; the destruction of a natural environment that had nurtured millions of Indians in thousands of cultures from the Arctic to the tip of South Americal; and the common belief that might makes right. There is still another kind of shock: the shock of realizing we were lied to. Why is our childhood memory of Columbus so hazy and positive? Why were we never taught what he actually did to those smiling, friendly Indians pictured in the books we read as children? Why didn't we learn about the torture, the mutilation, the rapes, the slaves, the single-minded pursuit of gold?” Columbus Not the Hero Americans Believe- Dennis Fox http://www.dennisfox.net/columns/columbus.html
As Euro-AmeriKKKans celebrate the “exploits” and “heroics” of the man known as Christopher Columbus, it behooves us to pause and allow the truth to marinate in our minds and psyches. The man history (the white man’s version) calls Christopher Columbus was not a hero, he was not a bold scientific explorer on a quest to prove the world was round, he was not a man of innocent adventure. He was a cold blooded killer, a ruthless butcher torturer and plunderer. These facts are indisputable to all but the most brainwashed and mentally comatose victims of global white supremacist mesmerism. The fact of the matter is, Eurocentric accounts of Columbus rarely mention his subsequent voyages to the Western hemisphere, probably because no amount of Western factual obfuscation can trivialize the vile and virulent psychopathy this man unleashed upon the peaceful native inhabitants of the Caribbean.
When Columbus returned to the Caribbean in 1493 he came not as an innocuous explorer because he knew there were inhabitants here. The second time he came with the sole purpose of stealing the gold and riches he thought they possessed. True to his mission he fitted his seventeen ships with over a thousand men, cannon, crossbows, guns cavalry, and attack dogs. He came with the full intent of waging war to plunder and pillage the newly “discovered” lands beyond the shores of Europe.
“When Columbus and his men returned to Haiti in 1493, they demanded food, gold spun cotton-whatever the Indians had that the Spaniards wanted, including sex with their women. To ensure cooperation Columbus used exemplory punishment. When an Indian committed even a minor offense, Columbus and his men cut off the Indian’s ears or nose. The he sent the person disfigured back to their village as a warning.” The Truth About Columbus A Subversively true Poster Book for a Dubiously Celebratory Occasion by Professor James W. Loewen page 22
On his second voyage the Europeans unleashed the savagery and brutality on the natives of Hispaniola that had been the cultural prerogative of Europeans for centuries.
“Columbus' second voyage commenced in 1493. It consisted of over 1000 men and 17 ships. He brought sugarcane with him to the Indies for enslaved Indians to cultivate. He also brought livestock to America for the first time, such as horses, sheep and cattle. The second voyage was mainly a colonization effort. Columbus and his crew left the Canary Islands on October 15, 1493. On the first voyage, Columbus left 40 men in a fort built from the Santa Maria's remains. Columbus named this place Navidad. Columbus and his crew returned to Navidad on November 28, only to find the fort burned and the men dead. Guganagari, a local chief that Columbus befriended on his first voyage, told him that the men argued among themselves over gold. Some of them abandoned the fort, but some of the rest raided an inland tribe and kidnapped people. The Indians retaliated by burning the fort and killing the men that remained. Columbus sailed eastward to the coast of Hispaniola to look for a place to build a new colony. He found a spot that he called ‘La Isabella’ after the Queen of Spain. The next several months were spent establishing the colony and exploring La Isabella. On April 24, 1494, Columbus and his crew sailed from La Isabella with three of the 17 ships to find the mainland of China. They reached Cuba on April 30, and left May 3. They anchored in Jamaica two days later. Because Columbus still could not find the mainland, and the Indians were mostly hostile to them, Columbus left for Cuba on May 13. Columbus quickly found that there were shoals and small islands dotting the coast of Cuba. This made exploration treacherous. Columbus and his crew headed west for several weeks in search of the mainland. He finally gave up the quest on June 13, 1494. Columbus did not want to admit failure, so he ordered all of his crewmen to sign a document swearing that Cuba was the mainland, since it was so large. Columbus returned to Hispaniola on August 20, 1494. By the end of September, Columbus was ill. His crew had abandoned further explorations and settled down in La Isabella. Columbus left La Isabella on March 10, 1496, bound home for Spain. He sighted Portugal on June 8.” Christopher Columbus by Tammy http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/euroexplorers/c_columbus.htm#topic2
When the Arawaks the indigenous inhabitants who had initially welcomed the foul-smelling pale faced invaders had had enough they fought back with sticks and stones which only gave the European brutes the excuse they were looking for to launch a full fledged assault using all their weapons of mass destruction and their attack trained hunting dogs! I point this out because Columbus had merely transported to the Caribbean the warmongering behavior Europeans have replicated everywhere they’ve set foot on planet earth, create conflict.
This is the real legacy of Christopher Columbus. It is a legacy that his European cousins continue to this very day. The re-invasion of Haiti, the assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq instigated by George W Bu$h are nothing more than a continuation of the same mentality, same psychopathy and same motives, the will to dominate and exterminate. By making Columbus a hero to school children it imprints upon their psyches the notion that European imperialism is ok, that it is admirable and noble.
“This fact hints at how the traditional Columbus myth, and much of the curriculum that follows in its wake, has conditioned children to accept without question imperial adventures like the Iraq war. For many children, the meeting of Columbus and the Taínos is the first time in the formal curriculum they learn about the contact between different cultures—often as early as October of kindergarten year, around Columbus Day. In fact, it's children's first in-school exposure to the contact between different nations—to foreign policy. From their earliest days in school, students are taught to identify with white Europeans: the explorers, discoverers, and conquerors. The people Columbus ‘discovers’ are incidental to the main tale of heroism—there, but not there. With few exceptions, children's books describe the arrival of Columbus in remarkably similar ways. Here's a typical passage, from A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus: ‘Christopher Columbus and his men rowed ashore. He planted a flag in the sand and claimed the island for Spain. He named it San Salvador.’ Missing from this crisp description is a basic question: What right did Columbus have to claim someone else's territory in the name of a far away empire? The book acknowledges that there were "natives" living there, so why couldn't these natives keep their land? Why couldn't the land be called what it had been called by its inhabitants for perhaps hundreds of years: Guanahani?” Commentary: Christopher Columbus and the Iraq War By Bill Bigelow http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/20_01/comm201.shtml
In addition to a culture that worships violence and promotes violence as a major entertainment theme the disingenuous Columbus historiography perpetuated by the European ruling elites conditions our psyches to accept and acquiesce to war and imperial overreach like we see going on now. In the name of Christianity and the Spanish monarchy Columbus slaughtered the Tianos Arawaks and Caribs, just as George W Bu$h is slaughtering and torturing Arabs, Afghanis and Persians for Exxon Mobil Shell and BP. Just as Bill Clinton slaughtered Serbs and Bosnians in the name of humanitarianism. Or like John F. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon massacred millions of Asians in the name of anti-communism. The warfare and torture Columbus let loose was not unique, European rulers and Church heads were doing that to their own people for centuries, what made Columbus unique was he imported it outside of Europe on an even wider scale than the Europeans did during the Crusades! As we look around the world today we see the Europeans have perfected their barbarism and have gotten much of the world to go along with their perverted notions that you can make “peace” by waging war or that imperialist occupations are “liberation”. Moreover there is an insidious psychological underpinning to all this, that white might makes right, that pillage plunder and theft by whites is good. This is the core lesson the European ruling elites propagate by their Columbus historiography.
“This celebration of colonial conquest is at the heart of the Columbus myth. Children learn that global inequality is a fact of life. The world is divided in two: the discoverers and the discovered, the rulers and the ruled, the civilized and the savage, the worthy and the unworthy. And later, as children will learn, the rich and the poor. And what characteristics does Columbus possess that could justify the domination described in kids' books? The books fail to answer this question directly, simply because they never raise it. Students are left to answer it themselves, albeit not consciously: Columbus was white, the natives were not; Columbus was Christian, the natives non-Christian; Columbus was armed, the natives un-armed. Whatever answers they may generate will endorse inequality: Some people in the world inherently have more rights than others. This fundamental global inequality is the ideological underpinning of U.S. involvement in Iraq. As George W. Bush proclaimed in his January 2003 State of the Union address, where he justified the impending war against Iraq: ‘Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people and the hopes of all mankind. ...And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people foodand medicines and supplies—and freedom.’ According to this logic, ‘we’ have the right to invade other nations when we decide they threaten us. We have a right to occupy other countries. We have the right to impose on them whatever form of government we choose—in the name of freedom, of course. We have the right to decide when others are ready to rule themselves, or not.” Commentary: Christopher Columbus and the Iraq War By Bill Bigelow http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/20_01/comm201.shtml
Whether you are merely enjoying a day off or mindlessly and foolishly “celebrating” this Eurocentric “holiday”, we should take a break to rethink what this means to us as African people. Stop and take a moment to reflect on all the souls that have been slaughtered over the centuries by Europeans in the name of their god, their leaders and ideologies. We need to ask ourselves do our ancestors want us to celebrate such savagery and by celebrating this “holiday” are we validating and giving energy to this vile legacy?
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d'Zert CLub Celebrates Ten Years of Transformation
d’Zert Club Celebrates Ten Years of Transformation In 1992 Ali and Helen Salahuddin started a business planning and hosting parties for adolescents to give them chaperoned, entertaining and safe activities at an inexpensive cost. In 1997 the couple took a trip to Senegal Africa and the experience altered their lives. So impressed with their sojourn and experiences in the motherland, the couple returned determined to embark upon a mission to transform the d’Zert Club into an educational and personality altering vehicle to restore and rebuild the self and race esteem of African-American youth. They teamed with noted author, entrepreneur and educator Dr. Edward Robinson and incorporated his African Genesis educational program into the d’Zert Club program. To augment the curricula and studies the Salahuddins planned and arranged educational trips and raised funds to take the children to the cradle of all humanity and the origins of Black genius and accomplishment. The educational aspects included a rigorous curricula of Africa and African American history not found in the schools interspersed with periodic trips to Black cultural and historical institutions in New York, Baltimore, Virginia, Detroit and Canada. The program culminates with an all expense paid trip to Africa, currently the students travel to both Kemet (Egypt) and Ghana. Since its inception in Philadelphia the program has spread across the country. Today the d’Zert Club Teen Summit 1000 African Genesis Corrective History Educational Program is the largest endeavor of its kind in America. Currently there are functioning chapters in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, Newark NJ, Detroit, Chicago, Brooklyn NY, Atlanta, Richmond VA and Boston Massachusetts.
On Saturday the Salahuddins celebrated the tenth anniversary of the d’Zert Club Teen Summit African Genesis Corrective History Educational Program. African drummers, Voices of Africa female vocal and drumming ensemble, program alumni, former group leaders, staff and supporters participated in a spirit filled celebration at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Philadelphia. Recognition and appreciation awards were given to supporters who assisted the program over the years: local elected officials, media personalities, community sponsors and d’Zert Club support staff. In his remarks Ali Slahuddin expressed appreciation for the backing and encouragement that has helped sustain the program and was unabashedly proud of the impact the d’Zert Club Teen Summit African Genesis Corrective History Educational program has had on so many young people. “We’re planting seeds here. When we start talking about things that are going to effect our people, where do you think the future leaders are coming from? In business they call it shelf life, they say a product has shelf life. We have a saying that says ‘It’s better to build a child than repair an adult.’ One of the reasons it’s easier is because you can’t find parts to repair an adult. The children have shelf life. We invest the time with the children because they’re the ones that are going to be around forty or fifty years if they take care of themselves. They are the ones who are going to pick up the ball and pick up the struggle. We are in it to win it. What you see from these children, they are not going to be like our generation because now they have overcome that fear and they’re not scared. They are not afraid. Not only have they traveled overseas they have done things not only their friends haven’t done but their families haven’t done. You are going to be hearing a lot out of these children.”
His wife Helen was surprised at how fast the years have passed but was very appreciative of what they have accomplished in that time. “For me it’s unbelievable that we have been doing this for so long. Ten years is a long time with one goal and one mission and the growth that we have experienced over the last ten years. We’re just so excited that we are still going strong. We are looking forward to ten more years. In this period of time, we’ve grown in more cities, we’re hoping to now establish and provide more scholarships for the young people, we have expanded the age from ten to fourteen to now its seven to fourteen years old and we now have new curriculums. But most importantly we meet new people along the way who are exciting and talented and we’ve met people who have given so much to us and we hope to meet more and more as we continue to go along.”
Over ninety five per cent of Teen Summit 1000 African Genesis Corrective History Educational Program students go on to college. The d’Zert Club program encompasses trips to both Kemet and Ghana and in the process greatly improves their knowledge of self, their self and ethnic esteem while transforming their lives for the better. For more information about the d’Zert Club Teen Summit African Genesis Corrective History Educational Program go to http://www.dzertclub.com/
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Slipping Further Into the Abyss of Immorality
Slipping Further Into the Abyss of Immorality
To paraphrase Edmund Burke the only condition necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing. In case you haven’t noticed (if you haven’t noticed you are part of the problem) evil is rampant in AmeriKKKa today. Alas good people seem to be doing nothing about it other than perhaps talking to a few friends and co-workers and writing on the Internet. This situation speaks to the moral decay and spiritual bankruptcy of this nation. Recent media revelations indicate the US Department of Justice under disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sanctioned and embarked upon a program of torture and deceit to conceal their evil.
“When the Justice Department publicly declared torture ‘abhorrent’ in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ‘combined effects’ over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be ‘ashamed’ when the world eventually learned of it.” www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?
Alas the people now know the torture memos and abusive and brutal policies do exist. Thanks to the New York Times (of all papers) the AmeriKKKan people now know Bu$h and Co secretly pushed for torture, yet there has been no hue and cry against US torture policies nor any moral outrage against the Bu$h administration’s Nazi like initiatives from the AmeriKKKan people. This latest revelation comes several years after the abuses and pictures undeniably documenting the torture practices at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as leaks and admissions about secret CIA detention facilities around the world. Yet the silence of the AmeriKKKan people remains deafening. Admittedly the corporate mind control apparatus controls the dialog but still there hasn’t been that much about it in the Blogosphere or so called “alternative media”. This is a very dismaying development. It means AmeriKKKa has become desensitized to such official government behavior; much like AmeriKKKa culture sanctioned and accepted lynching in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries!
The New York Times October 4, 2007 piece exposed the inner working of the Gonzales Department of Justice as he moved to turn the “Justice Department” into a goose stepping arm of the Bu$h cabal’s Nazification program for AmeriKKKa.
“When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was ‘a place of inspiration’ that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law. Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence.” www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate
Couple the inaudible public response to the revelations of the torture memos with the passive acquiescence to Bu$h’s wholesale illegal spying on the AmeriKKKan public, the nonchalance of the people about the Bu$h administration’s lies about WMD and their lies that led to an illegal and immoral invasion of yet another sovereign nation (Haiti and Afghanistan were the first) that had done nothing to threaten us plus the ho hum response to the NeoCrazies saber rattling against Iran and one could readily conclude AmeriKKKans are spiritually comatose and/or brain dead. Add to all this, the real state of the economy as it implodes before our very eyes and you get an ominous feeling regarding where this country is headed. In fact recent opinion polls indicate most AmeriKKKans are uneasy about the direction Bu$h and Congress are leading this nation.
“President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, and a new monthly index measuring the mood of Americans dipped slightly on deepening worries about the economy. Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July. The Reuters/Zogby Index, a new measure of the mood of the country, dropped from 100 to 98.8 in the last month on worries about the economy and fears of a recession, pollster John Zogby said.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070919/pl_nm/usa_politics_poll_dc
Add to this the rash of police brutality around the country and an alarming picture emerges about the AmeriKKKan psyche and its impact on the political state of the nation.
“Racial profiling is a deep-rooted problem in the United States. Despite evidence that it is ineffective and often makes us less safe, many law enforcement officials continue to rely on this blunt race-based tactic in hopes of apprehending more offenders. This type of abuse has continued and gotten worse since the attacks of September 11, 2001. According to the most recent opinion polls and census data, there are as many racial profiling victims in the United States as there are people in Canada. At least 32 million (one out of nine) people in the United States report having been racially profiled.4 Additionally, on any day of the week, at least 87 million (almost one in three) people in this country are at high risk of being victimized in this way because they belong to a racial, ethnic, or religious group whose members are commonly targeted by police for unlawful stops and searches. Racial profiling is a human rights violation that can affect Americans in virtually every sphere of their daily lives and often has an impact that goes far beyond the initial incident. As the testimonies summarized in this report reveal, this seemingly ubiquitous human rights violation leaves its victims feeling humiliated, depressed, helpless, and angry. Furthermore, racial profiling reinforces residential segregation, creates fear and mistrust, and engenders reluctance in reporting crimes and cooperating with police officers. In these times of domestic insecurity, our nation simply cannot afford to tolerate practices and policies that build walls between individuals or communities and those who are charged with the duty of protecting all of us.” http://www.amnestyusa.org/racial_profiling/report/rp_report.
As we become more desensitized, bamboozled and brainwashed by the corporate media, the ruling elites will get away with more crimes, launch more wars and institute more draconian domestic policies until we will soon look up and AmeriKKKa for
all of us will be like the AmeriKKKa for the Native American and Africans in AmeriKKKa. With each passing day we get deeper and deeper into the abyss. Soon we will pass the point of no return, if we have not already done so.
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We Always Pay For Their “Errors” “The Federal Reserve's new approach to rescuing failed banks is evidently to avoid political objection by doing it behind the scenes, using fiat money created for the purpose. Rather than taxing other banks or the taxpayers at large, the Federal Reserve imposes an indirect tax in the form of inflation. Like other central banks, the Federal Reserve is a "lender of last resort," which means it can create money out of nothing with accounting entries.7 Adding new money to the economy without adding new goods or services, however, is not without cost. It shifts the cost to the public, driving prices up, taxing us at the grocery store and the pump. Meanwhile, errant bank managers are rewarded by being allowed to keep their winnings and continue in their risky ventures.” Bank Run or Stealth Bailout: Global Credit Crisis hits Main Street by Dr. Ellen Brown Global Research, September 21, 2007
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6844 As the popular corporate media distracts the masses with mental pablum and mind numbing programming designed to dummy us down, the ruling elites continue to wage economic war on the rest of the world, especially here in the United States. Few people I’ve spoken with are aware just how precarious the financial situation actually is in the US. You may hear a few folks talking about the rising cost of food and gas but for the most part our people are going along happy because the young people mobilized a march and protest in Jena Louisiana and their favorite team, model or superstar is in the news. The skyrocketing cost of living does not exist by accident; they are the direct result of the policies of the US Central bank and it member banks. Didn’t know the US had a central bank? It does. It is called the Federal Reserve Bank although there is nothing federal as in US government about it. It is a private entity created by Congress in 1913 at the behest of the very people who own and run it, the private bankers who form its directorship and major shareholders. This corporate entity, not the US government sets monetary policy for the nation. The Fed determines how much money is printed and put into circulation at any given time, sets interest rates, decides how much the Fed charges member banks for “overnight” loans as well as the “discount rate” which indirectly impact what is called the “prime interest rate”, the rate we suckers pay to borrow money from our bankers.
During the last few month we’ve heard a lot about “Sub Prime interest loans”, these are loans which are given to persons with risky credit, folks who are over-extended credit wise or people who have had credit problems and the folks regardless of their credit histories who were deliberately steered to these high fee, high interest loans by bankers and mortgage brokers with encouragement of the big boys in the banking and financial circles.
“Several studies have shown that subprime loans have been pushed very hard in poorer communities, often to borrowers who could qualify for prime loans with better terms. (My emphasis) The subprime lending industry was doing fine until the Federal Reserve started its string of 17 hikes in the short-term interest rate in the summer of 2005, taking the rate from 1% to 5.25%. Four out of five subprime loans carry floating interest rates that, after the first year or two, change every 12 months as short-term interest rates fluctuate. Because of the Fed hikes, homeowners who received these loans in 2005 are now finding their monthly payments rising by 30% to 50%, leading many to fall behind in payments. ‘None of this would be an issue now if we did not have 17 straight increases in rates,’ Thomas says. About 70% of subprime loans have prepayment penalties that can make it too expensive ve for homeowners to refinance to conventional fixed-rate loans with lower interest rates. Because home prices are flat or falling in many of the poorer neighborhoods where subprime loans are most common, even those owners who can handle the prepayment penalties may find it impossible to get new loans large enough to cover their balances on the old ones.” Could Tremors in the Subprime Mortgage Market Be the First Signs of an Earthquake? By: Knowledge@Wharton
http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?1188&bus Many feel (I am one of them) the Fed and the private bankers, the hedge fund and derivative administrators collaborated to bring the current financial situation into being; knowing full well what the consequences would be: the massive defaults, foreclosures and economic implosion.
“The classic U.S. mortgage charged a ‘fixed’ interest rate that stayed the same for the loan's 30-year life. Once the mortgage papers were signed, the homeowners monthly payments never changed, making payments easier and easier to shoulder as the borrower's income rose with inflation. Generally, home values went up as well, so the borrower could expect to sell at virtually any time for more than he owed. But the picture has dramatically changed in recent years. Wachter estimates that nearly two-thirds of all home loans issued since 2003 were types she terms ‘aggressive.’ These entail risks for the lenders, borrowers and investors in mortgage-backed securities that are not found in conventional loans. In addition to subprime loans, this includes interest-only loans where the borrower makes no principal payments. It includes negative-amortization loans in which the borrower pays less than the full interest payment, with the shortfall added to the outstanding debt. And it includes loans that require little or no down payment, or no proof of income. Subprime lending, the riskiest category of aggressive loans, soared from $150 billion in 2000 to $650 billion in 2005, according to testimony at a recent Senate hearing on predatory lending.” (Emphasis mine)
http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?1188&bus Why you ask would bankers and financial “experts” do this? Simple, in the ensuing chaos they can then gobble up your house and any other “assets” you have as collateral at pennies on the dollar.
“Since 2000, outstanding mortgage loans have more than doubled: up over $5 trillion. Unpaid mortgages soared and lenders were falling all over themselves handing out sub-prime loans 2 for up to 125% of the value of the property. Now the real estate bubble has burst: property owners can't sell their homes or refinance them. They can't pay their mortgages so the banks foreclose and the house is sold on the courthouse steps. Within days they receive an eviction notice and they're out on the street. Since 2006, vacant dwellings have increased by more than 40% for existing homes and more than 20% for new homes. The personal tragedy these people face is overwhelming and heartbreaking.” Economic Cannibalism
http://www.new-enlightenment.com/econ_crash.htm Once you get into debt you are at the mercy of the person, bank or corporation who holds the note on your loan(s). If you are unable for any reason to pay your debt, the lender has the right to foreclose or call your note.
“The foreclosure process begins when a borrower/owner defaults on loan payments (usually mortgage payments) and the lender files a public default notice, called a Notice of Default or Lis Pendens. The foreclosure process can end one of four ways: The borrower/owner reinstates the loan by paying off the default amount to during a grace period determined by state law. This grace period is also known as pre-foreclosure. The borrower/owner sells the property to a third party during the pre-foreclosure period. The sale allows the borrower/owner to pay off the loan and avoid having a foreclosure on his or her credit history. A third party buys the property at a public auction at the end of the pre-foreclosure period. The lender takes ownership of the property, usually with the intent to re-sell it on the open market. The lender can take ownership either through an agreement with the borrower/owner during pre-foreclosure or by buying back the property at the public auction. These are also known as bank-owned or REO properties (Real Estate Owned by the lender).” What is Foreclosure?
http://www.clickondetroit.com/money/13538017/detail.html Ironically, the elite bankers and Wall Street financial wheelers and dealers don’t have to face the consequences of their actions because they get leniency and “corporate welfare” reserved only for the rich and well connected. The burst of the housing bubble and the resulting implosion of the credit and banking system is rippling around the world, Asian banks shuddered and suffered as did several banks in Germany and France, but they were bailed out by their Central Banks and the global network of central banks. A few weeks ago there was a run on two banks in the UK but the US corporate mind control apparatus repressed the story. The crisis is rippling across the Atlantic Ocean. Now the Fed is bailing out US banks and little people are the ones who will foot the bills. This scam is a repeat of the Savings and Loan scandal, with the elites getting off Scott free despite deliberately engineering this mess and tricking the taxpayers into bailing out the private bankers and their cohorts.
“As the U.S. home foreclosures crisis deepens, and mortgage banks and lenders sit on the edge of bankruptcy in the United States and in Europe, Congressional sources say that efforts to act on the crisis are being distorted by tremendous pressure on Congress from the hedge funds, investment banks, and their lobbies—pressure for a huge bailout of the funds by government housing agencies. Such a bailout, under the guise of 'helping homeowners avoid foreclosure,' would do no such thing—the admitted failure of a $100 million Ohio state mortgage refinancing plan, since May, has shown that. But it would turn Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration, into so many additional Federal Reserve Banks, injecting hundreds of billions—as the Fed has already been doing—into a bailout of the hedge funds and their partners, the Wall Street investment banks, which created the monstrous speculative bubbles based on housing mortgages. This bailout policy is worse than doing nothing at all about the banking crisis, economist Lyndon LaRouche said on Sept. 14: ‘It is the precise equivalent of spraying cold gasoline on a burning building,’ spreading the fire into an international explosion of inflation and a dollar collapse. Should Congress or the Federal Reserve have bailed out Enron, with its scores of ‘off-the-balance-sheet’ loan scams, debt investment vehicles, derivatives-trading operations, and billions in hidden losses? Such an insanity is the repeated bailout of Countrywide Mortgage, which has now reached $23.5 billion in banks' new credit lines to Countrywide using Federal Reserve money-printing injections into those banks, plus a $2 billion stock purchase by Bank of America. What's Countrywide done with all that bailout credit? Shrunk its mortgage lending by 20%, laid off 13,000 employees, further restricted refinancing for distressed mortgage-holders—and bought back devalued mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from hedge funds, investment banks, etc. at full price! Such an insanity, multiplied many times over, is what Wall Street's Financial Services Forum and the hedge funds' Managed Funds Association lobbies are demanding from Congress.” Bankrupt Funds' Bailout Push Bars Mortgage Crisis Solution by Paul Gallagher
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3437bailout_bars_solution.html The private bankers and hedge Fund administrators want the US Congress to come to their rescue! Imagine this, the same people who created this mess via economic policies and products that have put families and the nation on the brink of economic collapse now want the US government to bail them out. These are the same people who are working assiduously to undermine or dismantle the social networks like Social Security and other “New Deal” policies but they want us to foot the bill for their bailout. We are being duped and played big time. FYI, the ruling elites’ real goal is to rob and plunder the US treasury and reduce us all to wage peonage, bound to an overwhelmingly disproportionate tax burden (remember Bu$h’s tax cuts for the rich?) in conjunction with pervasive debt slavery.
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