Sunday, June 26, 2016

US Prisons The new Slavery

                                                


                                                  From The Ramparts
                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton
                                            US Prisons The New Slavery

            "'Insourcing,' as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison".http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-insourcing-of-prison-labor-seven-us-corporate-household-names-use-prison-labor-to-produce-their-goods/5492033?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

            If you haven't read Michelle Alexander's best selling book The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness please read it soon. She documents the creation and rise of the prison industrial complex's underclass of Black and Brown prisoners who have been stripped of: their  citizen rights, the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, severely minimizes their employment opportunities, eliminates financial aid for education, and their ability to secure public housing. The sad reality is the US gulag system was ramped up by President Bill Clinton with major support from his wife Hillary who campaigned hard for legislation that created a sharp spike in federal and state prison construction and the rise of Wall Street traded private prisons.
            When our people are locked up they are usually forgotten except by their families. Unless they are a celebrity, very little is known about what happens once those steel doors slam behind them and become engulfed into the prison culture. Even if they are not subjected to atrocities, torture  or horrid conditions they are for all intents and purposes now slaves.
            Slavery in the US was legally outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment but that amendment contains language that says, "except for punishment of crimes."  So what we have is not just a new Jim Crow (apartheid) in the US but also slavery. Many of us are familiar with US history following the War Between the States and the end of so called "Reconstruction" whereby Southern Blacks were routinely arrested on bogus and trumped up charges sanctioned by legislation enacted by most of the former Confederate States called the Black Codes. These laws reinstituted the subservient status of Black people, severely restricted their movement and activities.  Once Blacks were arrested they were often "hired out"  to plantation owners, the railroads, mines or did forced labor for the county or state. That system still exists today.  
            Racism and class bias are endemic in the "justice system" and seeking fairness and justice is not easy. The costs of securing a competent legal criminal defense and all that goes with it such as investigators and support staff are prohibitive for most people. Most people are forced to rely on the Public Defenders who are overworked and overwhelmed by the volume of their caseloads. This overload is due to the draconian laws passed at the behest of lobbyists who pushed for anti crime laws that mandated prison time that benefited their clients; the for profit private prison companies.  
            State and federal prison systems actively collude with corporations to use their inmates to make the corporation's products. These companies only pay inmates a pittance in some cases less than $1 a day. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-insourcing-of-prison-labor-seven-us-corporate-household-names-use-prison-labor-to-produce-their-goods/5492033?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles. More and more corporations are turning to prison labor to increase their profits. Corporations that directly or indirectly use prison labor are:  At&T, Walmart, McDonalds, Whole Foods, Victoria's Secret, Wendy's Starbucks, Verizon, Sprint to name a few. For an extensive list of companies involved in prison labor use go to  https://www.popularresistance.org/identifying-businesses-that-profit-from-prison-labor/.    America imprisons more people than any country in the world. It's not about reducing crime, it's about profit. Prison labor the new slavery is one of the reasons.


                                                            -30- 

Friday, June 17, 2016

Something's Fishy In Orlando

                                                   

                                               
                                                  From The Ramparts
                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton
                                            Something's Fishy In Orlando

            In the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando it appears that there are numerous anomalies many critical thinkers and skeptics are pointing out about the government narrative. Many of these anomalies have become standard operating procedure in what are becoming increasingly apparent in these psychological operations/false flag ops. There is something very fishy about the Orlando shootings. I am not saying people weren't shot injured or killed in the Pulse nightclub, what I am saying is the corporate mind control apparatus/government propaganda machine's "official" narrative do not add up.
            What first caught my attention was the media kept replaying the same scenes over and over again: we repeatedly were shown the exterior of the nightclub, police cars with flashing lights that had cordoned off the immediate area and repeated scenes of "civilians" assisting the wounded.  Even as time went on, hours passed and the days wore on the scenes didn't change that much except for the various people interviewed. What raised a red flag for me was what we were not shown: the inside of the club (granted the carnage may have been to gruesome to show), we did not see any ambulances on the scene or vans transporting injured people or body bags from the nightclub or scenes outside the medical examiners office.
            We saw the FBI, mayor, several local elected officials making statements but no hospital or coroner representatives were ever shown explaining the process of identifying the victims or the types of medical treatment they were getting. To me this was extremely fishy and indicated there is something amiss in this affair, something irregular and even nefarious. Again I am not saying there was no shooting, I am saying the narrative, media accounts and visuals are disingenuous.
            When I first heard about the incident I scoured the Internet to get more information. Obviously not everything on the Internet is factual but it is a valuable source of information and a way to cross reference and double check what has been reported. based upon what I saw, immediately I became skeptical. According to the reports an off duty police officer working security at the nightclub engaged the perpetrator Omar Mateen in a gun battle outside the nightclub at which time Mateen ran into the club. Another version stated Mateen went intothe club and a firefight ensued with the security guard.  Then three additional police officers responded and they went into the club and engaged in a firefight with Mateen.
            But according to several eye witnesses there was more than one shooter and one man even blocked the exit preventing people from escaping! The corporate mind control apparatus has so far ignored that lead or account. Then we get several differing accounts about what happened inside the club. They say people ran into the bathroom. Was it the same bathroom or different bathrooms? Supposedly Mateen came into the bathroom(s) asked if there were any Black people in there? Supposedly one person responded yes. One witness said Mateen stated "he didn't have anything against Black people". Another witness said Mateen started shooting wounding and killing several patrons who were in the stalls several who were Black!?
             Then he supposedly barricaded himself in a bathroom with hostages for three hours. Subsequently SWAT teams arrived, the order was given by the Orlando Police Chief and they created a "controlled explosion"; meaning they blow a hole in the outside wall of the nightclub (which supposedly allowed several trapped patrons to escape). Then after that they breeched the bathroom wall and several more hostages ran out. Subsequently Mateen came out shooting and was subsequently killed by police and Sheriff's officers.
            Amidst all the focus on Mateen and the accounts by the media talking heads there were no visuals of the inside of the nightclub or bodies being removed in body bags. The initial reports stated Mateen used an AR-15 but when people started saying that weapon was used in other mass shooting, the story changed to he used a Sig Sauer MCX.
             Okay I can see that as an honest error, but then again it wasn't changed until a few days later when people like me made the connection with Orlando and other mass shootings and the use of an AR-15! In a piece I initially wrote about the shootings, I questioned the designation of the Orlando shooting as the "deadliest mass murder in US history". I pointed out massacres of Indigenous peoples here in this country and the deadly race riots in Tulsa Oklahoma as far more deadly.
            The mainstream propaganda machine countered by saying the Native American killings were military actions while the Orlando shooting was a individual action. No mention about Rosewood or Tulsa was made in the Washington Post rebuttal https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/16/serious-reporters-address-your-viral-orlando-shooting-hoaxes-theories-and-conspiracies/ to the supposed "conspiracy theories" about the Orlando shootings.   The Washington Post gave the modern definition of "mass shooting" as " more than four people killed in a single incident by a criminal gunman (or, rarely, gunmen or gunwomen)." Then they provide a list of US mass shootings and the number killed. Many of these incidents are also suspected by many as false flag ops.
            More and more people are questioning the official narrative and critiquing the photos and visuals. One thing that stands out is that it was civilians who were rescuing and treating the victims not first responders. Where were the first responders other than the police in all this?
            There is strong suspicion many of the so called eye witnesses are what are called "crisis actors" people who are paid to act like victims, give prewritten accounts of the happening or act like grieving friends relatives and bystanders. A key way to tell is if they don't shed real tears they just mimic emotion. We saw some of that with the Orlando situation.
            In one visual some "civilians" carry a "wounded" man and place him in a open ended pick up truck!? This was all for show because the truck doesn't drive off and even if it did who knows where it went?
            Who benefits from something like this whether they were directly behind it or not? There are several very obvious agendas at play here. We saw one when it was stated that Mateen (correctly or not) was a radicalized Muslim linked to ISIS even though no actual proof was supplied, so the anti-Islam perpetrators win. The deep security state and military industrial complex win, the US CIA Director just testified before Congress that ISIS is at the gates. The media wins because events like this generate more viewers, more advertising and they can sow more fear, more anti-Islam ooga booga, which in turn generates more money for domestic spying and draconian laws to further the police state!
            Homosexual, transgender, alternative lifestyle activists really win. They mobilized so fast it was almost like they were ready in waiting for something exactly like this to happen. They have defined it as a "hate crime" even though no facts have been provided to support such a claim. CNN has been using this angle since Monday, gaining sympathy, empathy and connection with the GLTBQ communities. Now they are saying Mateen was gay himself so where is the hate angle?
             Of course the anti-gun crusaders will win there is even talk about repealing the Second Amendment to the US Constitution! Obama and the Democrats will push for more gun control laws and guns will be demonized rather than the criminogenic, violent culture we live in.
            Who loses? Us in the form of more mind entrainment, more laws that treat ordinary citizens as terrorists and more of our tax money  being used to fund the deep security police state as opposed to fixing the infrastructure, the economy and working for global peace.  Don't fall for the okey-doke, keep an open mind, question everything and think for yourself!

                                                            -30-

            

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Weird Things About The Orlando Shootings

                                                     


                                                From The Ramparts
                                                
                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton
                                     Weird Things About The Orlando Shootings

            On June 11, 2016 a supposed lone gunman walked into an Orlando Florida nightclub that was a popular hang out for homosexuals and transgender patrons opened fire killing over fifty and wounding fifty-three. I've scoured the Internet looking at corporate and alternative media sources and here is what is being said: the shooter Omar Mateen who was killed by police was twenty-nine years old, he was born in New York his parents were from Afghanistan, he lived in Fort Pierce Florida and had no prior police record, he had been interviewed in 2013 by the FBI in connection with "terrorist related cases" but he was not charged or put on a watch list. (There are conflicting reports he was on a list of potential radicals.) Mateen worked as a security officer with one of the nation's largest security companies, G4S Secure Solutions. he was trained and licensed in weapons.
            I confess, I'm skeptical about these types of events. I don't trust the government or the media especially since 9-11. We've been lied to on so many occasions I automatically question the government and corporate media narrative. We're being asked to believe that a man armed with a pistol an AR-15 semi-automatic assault weapon and an undetermined number of rounds allegedly went to Pulse a night club and just started shooting? The lone gunman (another common government theme) was killed during a shootout with police and Sheriff's officers. That's is another common pattern, the perpetrator gets killed thereby eliminating any chance of being interrogated to see if others were involved or why he did it?  
            There are two differing accounts as to why the Orlando police determined it was a hostage situation. In one the Orlando police stated they treated the circumstance as a hostage situation when Mateen went into the nightclub after a brief shootout with police near the nightclub.  An alternative account states he exchanged gun fire with a security officer inside the nightclub and police who arrived regarded it an hostage situation and SWAT was called in. Yet we've seen  no report on what happened to the "hostages" or any of the club patrons saying they were personally held hostage.
            The man's father stated his son was not affiliated with a religious or radical terrorist group despite reports in the media that he called 9-11 to pledge allegiance to ISIS during the shootings. Details about the shooting are sketchy but there are some things that make you go hmmm?  First Mateen fits the "lone gunman", "lone kook" narrative we have been spoon fed ever since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth . He followed the usual government and police script: he acted alone, there were no associates or accomplices etc. etc.
            Another "coincidence" is, he used an AR-15 assault rifle. The AR-15 is the seeming weapon of choice for mass shooters. Several other "lone shooter" mass killers in recent years have used an AR-15 to do their dirty work. An AR-15 was used in the Sandy Hook, San Bernadino, Umpqua Community College and Colorado "Batman" movie shootings. Any coincidence there? Makes you wonder., what is he mathematical probability of those people using the exact same type of weapon?  
            Mateen was married but the marriage supposedly only lasted a few months. His former wife who refused to identify herself said he was violently abusive and had "anger management issues" (here's more of the emotionally unstable profile). Yet they say he was incensed when he saw two men kissing in front of his son in Miami earlier. How old is his son and who is the boy's mother?  So now we have a Muslim who goes off shoots up a gay nightclub who is being touted as the perpetrator of the "the largest mass killing in the nation's history".
              Really? What about the times the US military killed innocent Native Americans like the Massacre at Wounded Knee South Dakota where US Army killed over one hundred fifty men women and children!  Or what about the massacre at Sand Creek where 700 drunken Colorado Militia attacked 200 Cheyenne, Arapaho tribesmen killing 170 mostly women and children! What about Tulsa Oklahoma and Black Wall Street? I could go on and on but you get my drift.
            Any loss of life is a tragedy, we must not allow another government and media rush to judgment or false flag operation to psyche us into falling for a hidden agenda to: promote fear of  "Islamic terrorists" like al-Qaeda and ISIS we know were created and funded by the US, domestic gun control, and sexual and gender reorientation. Let's wait to see if there is a serious investigation and collection of all the facts or more questionable narratives by the government and media.


                                                            -30-

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Muhammad Ali, Champion


                                                 From The Ramparts
                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton
                                            Muhammad Ali, Champion

            "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee rumble young man rumble" -  Bundini Brown exhorting Muhammad Ali

            One of the most charismatic athletes of the twentieth century is a Black man who was born and originally named Cassius Clay but later changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He burst onto the international scene as a boxer during the 1960 Rome Olympics where he distinguished himself in the light heavyweight division because of his fluid style, hand quickness and radiant personality. Prior to going to Rome Ali had won the AAU amateur boxing championship in 1959.
            The Rome Olympics catapulted Clay into the national consciousness. Americans love a winner, especially one who wins for the country which Clay did as the 1960 Olympic Gold Medal Champion.  Doors opened quicker for him because of his Olympic success. Due to his fame, skills and work ethic he was able to rise up to become a contender in the heavyweight division.
            Clay joined the Nation of Islam lead by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and was tutored by Malcolm X.  He changed his name while training for his heavyweight championship fight with Sonny Liston. The world was shocked by this young man's brashness and style. Liston was the champion but he was far less charismatic and articulate compared to his  younger opponent and the  press flocked around Clay (Ali) as he put on a show in and out of the ring.  After he successfully dethroned Liston  in 1964 he announced to the world he had changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
            The impact of Ali's membership in the Nation of Islam was huge. It occurred at a time when the Civil Rights struggle was intensifying and the separatist philosophy of the NOI differed sharply with the assimilationist views of the mainstream Civil Rights leaders. But its message of do for self, Black pride and militancy resonated with large numbers of everyday Black folks. The Vietnam War was escalating and the nation was torn between the imperialist policies of the US government and the growing resistance and peace movements. Ali was pressured by the establishment to support war like champions and celebrities before him had done.
            As a young man Ali was bound to register for the military draft. He was drafted into the military in 1966 but refused induction on April 29, 1967 on grounds of being a conscientious objector and a follower of Elijah Muhammad. Ali put a racial and geo-political spin on his very public refusal to be inducted when he said, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end..."
            By taking that courageous stand Ali's prestige rose even higher among most younger Blacks. But he was vilified and demonized by the white establishment; the same establishment who cheered him when he won the gold medal in Rome. As punishment they stripped Ali of his title, took his boxing license and his passport to prevent him from continuing to speak out against what he felt was a racist and unjust war. He was convicted of evading the draft and sentenced to five years in prison and fined $ 10,000. At that time with the exception of Martin Luther King Jr. very few Black leaders publically opposed the war. Nonetheless Ali stood his ground..
            He appealed his conviction, his case went all the way to the US Supreme Court which finally overturned his conviction on religious grounds. His tenacity and his willingness to fight for his beliefs earned him the respect of millions around the world. His next challenge was to try to get his license back so he could box professionally again. Ali was successful and this led to a series of celebrated bouts against the best fighters of his era. To his credit, Ali never ducked an opponent. His fights with Joe Frazier were legendary in their intensity and fiery but he also fought all the greats of his day: Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrell, Ken Norton,  Ernie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Leon Spinks, George Foreman and Larry Holmes to name a few.
            Ali's popularity grew over the years and he eventually overcame the animus many held against him for not going into the US Army and for being a Muslim. Ali was a celebrated figure around the world and remained famous for decades after he retired. To me and most of my peers growing up in the 1960's, Muhammad Ali was a true hero. Ali fought the system and won.  He showed us it was possible for a Black man to stand for something and have the courage of your convictions. That is why so many honor him to this day.
            In later years, Ali suffered from Parkinson's Disease a debilitating neurological condition which impacted his ability to speak which must have been frustrating for him because he loved to talk and be the center of attention everywhere he went. Despite his illness, Ali was still admired and respected until he made his transition on June 3, 2016. Muhammad Ali is still  our champion.

                                                                          -30-