Trump's Trip
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Trump's Trip
Donald Trump recently concluded
a much ballyhooed trip to Saudi Arabia,
Israel and Europe.
While a contrived controversy about his alleged ties to Russia rages at home, Trump did
little while he was abroad to promote peace, engender confidence or create
economic good will.
Trump revealed
himself to be one of three things: a complete idiot about world affairs, a
blatant hypocrite by going to Saudi
Arabia the prime supplier of fanaticism and
terror in the world today, or a stooge for the military industrial security complex/Deep
State.
The
corporate media is not going to tell us about the role Saudi Wahabbism plays in
hate and terror on a global level, but I will. "Modern Islamic extremism and terrorism
simply cannot be explained or understood without looking at the history and
influence of Wahhabi Islam. This means that it's important from an ethical and
an academic perspective to understand what Wahhabi Islam teaches, what's so
dangerous about it, and why those teachings differ from other branches of Islam...
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
(d. 1792) was the first modern Islamic fundamentalist and extremists. Wahhab
made the central point of his reform movement the principle that absolutely
every idea added to Islam after the third century of the Mulsim era (about 950
CE) was false and should be eliminated. Muslims, in order to be true Muslims,
must adhere solely and strictly to the original beliefs set forth by Muhammad.
Because so many
Muslims lived
(so he claimed) in jahiliyya, al-Wahhab accused them of not being true
Muslims after all. Only those who followed the strict teachings of al-Wahhab
were truly Muslims because only they still followed the path laid out by Allah.
Accusing someone of not being a true Muslim is significant because it is
forbidden for one Muslim to kill another; but if someone is not a true Muslim
then killing them (in war or in an act of terrorism) becomes licit. It would be
hard to underestimate the importance of this principle to modern terrorists and
extremists...
Even though Wahhabism is a minority position
overall in the
Muslim world,
it has nevertheless been influential for other extremist movements throughout
the
Middle East. This can be seen with a
couple of factors, first of which is al-Wahhab’s use of the term jahiliyya to
vilify a society which he does not consider pure enough, whether they call
themselves Muslim or not. Even today, Islamists use the term when referring to
the West and at times even to their own societies. With it, they can justify
overthrowing what many might regard as an
Islamic state by
essentially denying that it is truly Islamic at all."
Wahhabism and Wahhabi Islam: How Wahhabi Islam Differs
from Sunni, Shia Islam https://www.thoughtco.com/wahhabism-and-wahhabi-islam-250235
Make
no mistake, Saudi Arabia is
a Wahhabist state ruled by a family of desert pirates who were recognized and
given status as monarchs by the British Empire
in 1926. Al Saud a Bedouin thief and his family formed a partnership with al
Wahhab's fanatics in 1744 and have
been in cahoots ever since. Most if not all Islamic fanaticism has it's roots
in Saudi Wahhabism which has been exported from Saudi Arabia around the world! https://my.nps.edu/documents/105988371/107571254/DillonWahhabismThesis.pdf/23fc46fb-17a6-41da-83b8-8e312191b5bb
For
Donald Trump to go to Saudi
Arabia bow down to these thugs and give them
additional billions in US arms is an utter disgrace! The corporate media is not
going to tell us the US
partners with Saudi Arabia, Israel and NATO to run their proxy wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Syria, Yemen and other places around the
world nevertheless it is a fact.
From
Saudi Arabia Trump ventured to Israel where he also promised billions of additional
US taxpayer dollars to them while simultaneously cutting funds for social
programs at home in his proposed budget. What's wrong with that picture? What
type of hornet's nest will Trump stir if he follows through with his idea of
moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?
From
Israel Trump flew to Europe to meet with the
Pope, NATO and the G7 leaders. There he chastised NATO members for not paying
their "fair share" while hypocritically calling NATO which for all
intents and purposes is the thug arm of US global imperialism an "organ of
peace". Whew, you can't make this stuff up.
He criticized Germany
for having a thriving economy exporting more goods to the US than the US
exports to Germany.
I wonder why? Could it be German products are better made than the USA's?
People
appear relieved Trump did not make a complete fool of himself and embarrass the
country. Maybe, maybe not; his dance with the Saudi swords made him look like a
doofus in my book. But let's not forget what an idiot George W Bu$h was, how he
led this nation into perpetual wars and debt based on lies and how his
successors both Obama and Trump are building upon that pattern.
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Magic Sounds Reading Program
Magic Sounds Reading Program
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Elementary
school teachers are exceptional educators and motivators. Their task is to
stimulate inspire and encourage young minds in the joy of learning and prepare
them for the rigors of things to come. Miss Barbara Jackson was an elementary
school teacher who taught first grade in the Philadelphia school district for over thirty
years. During that time she enjoyed interacting with young children discovering
and figuring out ways to make learning fun and easy for her students.
She
attended and graduated from Cheyney
State Teachers
College where she was trained to teach the basics
of reading, mathematics and civics. She favored the phonics approach to
teaching reading because her methods instructor at Cheyney emphasized phonics
and encouraged her to use it to teach reading.
When she
began her teaching career, phonics was the standard method but subsequently the
Philadelphia School District switched to the sight
word approach. She found her students were
not doing as well using that method. Being a true teacher who wanted her
students to succeed, she went back to teaching phonics. "I was about ten
years into teaching, I was seeing the children weren't grasping reading the way
I thought they should so I tried all kinds of ways to get them to do better. I
developed magic sounds, I was already teaching phonics but this was an easier
way than the traditional phonics. One day I sat down and wrote it out I showed
it to a friend of mine and he couldn't believe it."
She saw her students responded well to the
program and over the years she modified
it to suit the skills and personalities of her classes. After a while she realized
she had created an innovative reading program which she called Magic Sounds.
Being an astute teacher, she recognized the children liked repeating the vowel
sounds coupled with consonants to make up words or parts of words. She
discovered her technique made reading easier for her students.
She caught
flack from some of her principals but remained steadfast and persistent in her
belief that phonics was the better reading teaching method. Plus school administrators
couldn't really discipline her because her students always outperformed the
other first grade classes in the school.
Miss Jackson wanted to share the program with
other teachers, parents and the public so she went into a professional
recording studio, recorded the lessons then used her notes and lesson plans to
create a workbook to accompany the audio lessons. As time passed Miss Jackie,
as her students called her, was forced to keep up with the technology. At first
she used vinyl records. When cassette tapes came out she created cassette tapes
for her lessons, then DVD's and later memory sticks. Now she is working on an
animated program and workbook.
Though
retired she still tutors students one on one occasionally and she keeps busy
refining and reworking her reading program she calls Magic Sounds. She has
expanded to offer a few additional learning products. She is proud of the reading
program and the success it has had helping students of all ages learn to read
using phonics. "You can use the program to teach toddlers and babies to
read. If the mother watches the DVD and becomes familiar with the sounds then
she can teach her baby. The child will learn very fast and efficiently because
phonics is a natural way to learn to read because that is the way children
learn to speak. In the first year babies babble, they say da,da, dada and ba,ba
and baba; these are the short sounds. They don't say mama or mommy until later.
In all the
years I've been doing this I've never had one program returned." She
declared proudly.
With much
of education in crisis especially in urban areas, with dwindling resources,
widening achievement gaps and an emphasis on test score results, a program like
Magic Sounds is a medium parents, teachers, mentors and educational advocates
can get behind and support.
Miss Jackie spends much of her time filling
orders for the program and shipping them out of her home. "I do most of
the work myself I don't have a large staff. I used to have a friend who served
as a salesman but he died." She has created a Website,
www.magicsoundsphonicsfirst.com and she sells her programs Online. The cost is
$20 which includes shipping and handling. For more information about Magic
Sounds reading made easy, you can E-mail her at magicsoundsreadeasy@gmail.com
or call (215) 849-5543.
-30-
ps, you can listen to my podcast interview with Barbara
Jackson at https://soundcloud.com/junious-ricardo-stanton/akoben-miss-barbara-jackson-magic-sounds-reading-technique
It's Time To Stand Up For Right
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
It's
Time To Stand Up For Right
"Stand
for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's
nut that held its ground." - Rosa
Parks
There was a time Afro-Americans were
the moral compass of this country. Due to the insane system of slavery and
oppression that ensnared our ancestors in a vicious environment that attempted to break their
spirits and sap their will to resist, numerous ancestors stood up to urge their
peers to struggle, resist and hold on for a better day.
In 1827 Freedom's Journal the first
African American newspaper was started by Rev. Samuel E. Cornish the pastor of
the African Presbyterian Church of New York and John Russwurm the first Black
man in the US
to receive a college degree. Their paper called for self-determination and
freedom. The banner of their very first edition read, "We Wish to Plead
Our Own Cause." In the first
editorial they said, "We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others
spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations in
things which concern us dearly ..."
While the paper didn't last long due to lack of financial support, it
was a seminal effort in self-determination and self expression.
David Walker was born in North Carolina around
1796 of an enslaved father and free mother; so he "enjoyed" free born
status. His status as a free Black
allowed Walker
to gain an education. He subsequently moved to Massachusetts in 1825. There he became active
in the abolition movement and the proprietor of a successful second hand shop
that sold mostly sailors clothing and uniforms. In 1829 he wrote and published
a radical call for the abolition of slavery entitled Walker's Appeal To The Slaves of The United States of America a
detailed account of the status of enslaved people. In it Walker was implacable in his hatred of slavery.
He vigorously denounced the forced ignorance and white religion slavery imposed
upon his enslaved brethren. Walker was equally contemptuous
of the colonization movement organized by prominent whites whose goal was to
get free Blacks to immigrate back to Africa.
Walker urged enslaved Africans not to turn
the other cheek but to use violence in their righteous quest for freedom. Walker's provocative pamphlet so unnerved white America a
bounty of $500 dollars was placed on his head, $1,000 if he was captured alive.
Walker was advised of this by friends who urged
him to flee to Canada,
but he refused. He was mysteriously
found dead in 1830. Many suspected he had been poisoned but "official
records" say his death was due to tuberculosis.
Throughout our sojourn in the
wilderness of North America there have been countless courageous souls known
and unknown who stood up for freedom, dignity and self-determination in small
and large ways from one on one resistance to leading large scale rebellions and
social movements. As this nation devolves into an oppressive police state very
reminiscent of the constant monitoring by the Pattyrollers and militia during
slavery, it is time for us to stand up and stand for something. It is time to
reinsert the words struggle and liberation into our vocabulary and lexicon.
The voices of our ancestors,
countless sheroes and heroes call out from the spirit realm to encourage us to
stand for something meaningful and good. Mrs. Rosa Parks the courageous
catalyst for the Montgomery Bus boycott once said, "Stand for
something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut
that held its ground."
We can not
afford to rest on our laurels or boast about our victories during the Civil
Rights movement because many of those same victories are being undermined as we
speak. Sadly there is no mass movement to address these issues or right these
wrongs. It's time we stand up for freedom, human rights, economic justice,
PEACE and well being for all humanity.
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The Monkey Is Showing His Behind
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The Monkey Is Showing His Behind
There is an
African saying, "the higher a monkey goes up the tree, the more it shows
its' behind." We are seeing Donald Trump show his behind. Many people
voted for him because they thought he would usher in a new era of government
featuring less taxes, less military intervention and war, an America first
outlook, create and bring jobs back to the US. Trump won the election by
garnering the most electoral college votes and after one hundred days he is
well on his way up the tree and we are seeing his behind.
We are
seeing just how ill equipped he is and how the deep state has muffled all his
talk about friendly relations with Russia. We are seeing how he has flip-flopped
on just about every campaign promise he made. Now only his most ardent
supporters and the Fox Cable talking heads are the only ones who aren't having
buyers remorse (not that a Clinton
presidency would be better).
Just like
on the campaign trail where Trump played loose with reality (alternative facts)
he routinely uttered outrageous characterizations of his opponents and their
policies, now in the White House Trump looks like the reality show personality
he is. For him, everything is hyperbole,
spin and there is no rhyme or reason to the things he does.
When Trump
was talking about establishing friendly relations with Russia he was ridiculed, mocked and
scorned by the deep state's acolytes in the corporate media, the D.C. beltway
group think lemmings and the warmongers in the military intelligence security
hydra. He caved in immediately. Now Trump is on board with saber rattling and
bellicose rhetoric against people who have done nothing to the U.S.
Trump drank
the Democratic Party's Kool Aid about Russia hacking the presidential
election despite the fact the CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI and Five Eye Alliance have
produced no evidence whatsoever to prove these claims are factual. Whew.
Unlike the US, North Korea
has not invaded anyone, North Korea
has not engineered coups in foreign lands and North Korea doesn't have over eight
hundred military and covert ops bases around the world! North Korea can't launch a nuclear missile at
the US
mainland because they don't have the capability. But Trump and his advisors (except Banning)
are cheerleaders for "all options are on the table" blustering
against North Korea.
They never talk about coming to the table to work out a binding peace agreement
to end the Korean War! Trump is revealing
he is just like his predecessors a gullible stooge in the grip of the deep
state.
On the home
front, Trump and his Republican Party buddies who have their own agenda are
using his popularity as a cover to gut the New Deal and Great Society programs
like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
These
charlatans made a big deal about the fact they passed a Health Care bill to
supposedly keep their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the fact of
the matter is they didn't do any such thing. Most of the two hundred seventeen
Congress critters who voted for the bill hadn't even read it!! They held a love fest and mutual admiration
society bash at the White House after the vote each taking turns patting
themselves on the back for passing a House version of a bill that will need
passage in the US Senate then reconciliation with the Senate version then
passage of the compromise bill and then signage by Trump. All that for a bill
that is deeply flawed which will hurt citizens much more than Obamacare did
(not that Obamacare was a good bill it wasn't).
Trump is
showing he doesn't give a hoot about the American people, only his super rich
buddies. There is an article in Forbes that details how the GOP health bill
injures just about everyone. Please read the article at https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2017/05/05/how-gops-healthcare-bill-hurts-everyone/#6954714b5cf2
As Trump
goes farther up the tree (a metaphor for the D.C. political landscape) the more
he reveals how controlled by the establishment he really is.
-30-
The Tax Cut Scam
From The Ramparts
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
The Tax Cut Scam
"The reality is that years of massive
deficits, runaway government spending, artificially low-interest rates, and
three rounds of quantitative easing, have left the economy so sick that any tax
cut large enough to revive it may actually kill it instead. The only silver
lining to this cloud may be that the coming fiscal train wreck leaves lawmakers
no choice but to slash government spending. If the real Republican agenda is to
starve the beast, its success is assured." Peter Schiff, http://patriotrising.com/2017/05/01/tax-cut-big-enough-save-economy-may-kill-instead-says-peter-schiff/
I don't
profess to be an economist, a tax expert or and big time financial analyst but
it seems to me the Trump tax cut plan is a scam that will do the same thing the
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts did, give a gigantic boost to the
already rich while skyrocketing government deficits and debt. The United States
is fiscally bankrupt our government spends far more than it take in from taxes,
tariffs, leases and other forms or revenue.
You know
yourself if you spend more money than you earn by using credit cards and refinancing
your home your wealth diminishes and your balance sheet will be out of whack,
so image what it means for a country to be in hock over its head. This
situation would be catastrophic except for the fact the US treasury can get
money from the Federal Reserve Bank anytime it needs it, but obviously at a
cost since it is really a loan; sort of legalized (due to the legislation that
created the Federal Reserve bank in 1913) counterfeiting.
Continuous
deficits are really unsustainable but the federal government simply borrows the
money to keep operating even though they know it is putting us in a deeper
fiscal hole. "For example, in 2015, the federal government ran a cash
deficit of $438 billion—after collecting $3,250 billion in revenues and
spending $3,688 billion. The continuous level of deficit spending has
increased public debt, which, during the same period, rose from 33.7 percent to
73.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP)." http://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/causes-the-federal-governments-unsustainable-spending
This means
the government debt level is almost as much as the total amount of goods and
services produced in this country! We are fast approaching the point where
public debt will overtake and surpass the total productivity of this nation!
Not that that's too hard to do since the US has been deindustrialized, the
jobs sent overseas and casino
capitalism is the rage.
Now Trump is coming with his tax reduction
plan, a plan ambiguous in details but praised by the rich because it lowers
their taxes! Trump's tax plan has been formulated by the rich for the rich. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trump-tax-plan-more-money-for-the-oligarchs/5587786 This will produce a declining standard of
living for most Americans. The Republican agenda (which is also supported by
many Democrats) is to cut and eventually gut social programs like Social
Security and Medicare while continuously funding wars (fueled by the totally bogus
war on terrorism), massive corporate subsidies and welfare for the rich.
Due to
corporate media propaganda, government brainwashing and mind control we suffer
from shortened memories and an absence of critical thinking; so we fail to connect
the dots about how tax cuts for the rich championed and passed by Ronald
Reagan, George W. Bu$h and Congress created huge benefits for the rich, massive
government deficits but failed to manifest the ballyhooed jobs and trickle down
benefits for the rest of us. Trump's plan will do the exact same thing
especially given the Republican plan to cut the so called entitlement programs.
By the way "entitlement programs" are programs we pay or paid into
while we were working, that our Congress critters don't have to pay into
because their plans are funded by us (in addition to the bribes and
contributions they receive) and are much much better!
We are
facing a lose lose situation here. This alarming ratio of rising government
(and personal) debt to shrinking GDP is unsustainable in the long run and this
doesn't include the dire fiscal situation faced by cities, counties and state
governments and their pension plans. Demand a full airing and accounting of the
proposed tax cuts lest we see a repeat of the Reagan and Bu$h policies.
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