Student Protests Are Spreading Across The US
Student Protests Are
Spreading Across US
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Since
Israel’s heavy handed response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks
there has been a growing antipathy towards Tel Aviv’s ethnic
cleansing and genocide. People of good realize the Zionist regime has
far exceeded any sane notions of “defense” or even an attempt to
retaliate against Hamas for their attacks upon Israel, Israeli
citizens to force the return of an untold number of Israelis who are
being held hostage. The government of South Africa courageously filed
a petition and took the Israeli government before the International
Criminal Court at the Hague on charges of genocide.
In
the US collage students have been protesting and holding
demonstrations against the Israeli campaign to depopulate Gaza and
Palestine. Columbia University has been in the news lately as campus
protests have caused a sharp divide among students, the
administration and the city. The student demonstrations have
disrupted normal campus complacency as a result, the university
administrators have called for a return to virtual classes as of last
Monday there is no in class in person learning, the NYC police have
arrested over Columbia 100 students and tensions remain high. Several
Jewish students have expressed concern for their safety but there
have been no indications of physical attacks or violence against them
on Columbia’s campus
Students
on other campuses around the country are demonstrating in solidarity
with their peers at Columbia; Boston U and NC Chapel Hill are holding
rallies to support the Columbia students demands for free speech and
the right to protest and demonstrate. Yale students are demanding
their University divest from MIC weapons manufacturers. Meanwhile
several university presidents have threatened to suspend, expel or
arrest their students. Vanderbilt, Pomona College in California and
Rutgers in NJ have threatened to punish student activists. Howard
University students in Washington D.C. have held demonstrations and
protests and marched on the administration building accusing their
administrators of genocide because of its ties to Israel, the
Pentagon and the military.
Now
there are tremendous external pressures being brought to bear on
university presidents. ,The US Congress has called the president of
Columbia to come to Capitol Hill to be chastised and grilled just
like they did the presidents of MIT, U of P and Harvard several
months ago which lead to the resignations or dismissals of the
presidents of Harvard and U of P. Many. In addition prominent donors
are threatening to pull funding and university administrators have to
walk a fine line between honoring and allowing freedom of expression
and maintaining support from key alumni and donors! We are also
witnessing the massive clout and influence of the Zionist lobby in
this country as they seek to control the narrative and suppress
pro-Palestinian support.
It
is good to see students engaged and protesting for what they believe
is right. The protests have sparked discussion and
counter-demonstrations on both side of the issue and a greater call
for peace and a cease fire; correct me if I’m in error isn’t this
is what freedom of speech is all about? Why the efforts to shut the
protests camp in and demonstrations down. Why the one sided attacks
on university presidents by the US congress critters?
As for me I side with the South African government who took Israel to
the ICC on charges of genocide. Israel is definitely committing war
crimes and collective punishment by withholding power, water,
humanitarian aid, by bombing hospitals and Gaza’s infrastructure
and knowingly targeting civilians. This is wrong and it is abominable
the US uncritically supports these war crimes by providing money and
material. The US Congress and Senate just passed a $95 billion bill
to provide weapons and funding to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan as US
infrastructure crumbles and nothing is done about the porous border
situaton!
America
is losing even more standing in the world due to its support of this
war, more of us need to step up, stand up and speak out for PEACE,
morality and right not just college kids. Israel has lost the moral
high ground on this if they ever had any and the US is complicit in
these atrocities.
The
October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas also raises questions, how is it that
Gaza a literal open air concentration camp under constant
surveillance and monitoring by Israeli intelligence was able to
launch a “surprise” attack on Israel?! How is it until this week,
no Israeli military or intelligence personnel were disciplined or
fired following the so called “surprise attack”? Did they allow
it to happen to justify the genocidal campaign we are now witnessing?
You
cannot be neutral on this issue,this is genocide, it is settler
occupier ethnic cleansing! The soul of America is at stake here we
need to position ourselves on the right side of morality and history
on this issue, stand for PEACE.
-30-
We Need To Get In The Game
We Need To Get In The Game
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
“Largely the problems we are confronted with today as Afikan
people in America flow from our powerlessness or our inappropriate
uses of power. We’ve been made to think that to even talk about and
think of power is sinful, that to pursue it is immoral and wrong. But
one cannot exist without power. Without power there is no life, a
battery without power is dead. You need power to act, to behave in
the world, to deal with the world.” Amos Wilson from Afrikan
Centered Consciousness Versus The New World Order Garveyism in the
Age of Globalisim. Page 87.
As
we survey our condition in modern America and the world we are forced
to, if we are honest, admit we are in deep trouble as a people.
Despite media depictions of stylish, blinged out black folks wilding
out, overly materialistic, mimicking white people while in reality we
lead the country in poor health outcomes
https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/how-present-day-health-disparities-for-black-people-are-linked-to-past-policies-and-event
and way too many of us are in poverty, financially as well as
psychologically and morally. Our status in this nation despite a
plethora of elected and appointed public officials is due to our
powerlessness and lack of discipline both on a personal and
collective level!
During our sojourn in this country we have been subjected to
multifaceted and wholesale abuse, denigration, discrimination and
manipulation within a system which has consistently demonstrated a
heartless, callous and antagonistic attitudes towards us. Capitalism
is not designed to provide equity or an even playing field. From its
inception the system was constructed to create a rigid spectrum of
inequality, a few have’s and a massive number of have not’s where
only a few would be able to break the ceiling.
Today
is no different, despite “social advances” and the elimination of
state sanctioned racial caste and apartheid, Black people still
remain on the lower rungs of America’s socio-economic ladder and
the advent of rapid technological applications is going to greatly
exacerbate this situation.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-glass-barrier-to-the-upper-middle-class-is-hardening/
What can we do, how can we best navigate the new social environment
we find ourselves in during a time the powers that be no longer need
us for human labor and others are rapidly replacing us with their
intellectual capital, prowess and ambition. We all can’t be
entertainers and professional athletes, drug dealers or criminals; so
what does the future hold for us?
In a highly automated society
driven by AI how do we carve out a place of usefulness, and success
both personally and collectively? Why aren’t our so called leaders
even asking these questions and challenging us to engage in what is
now being called Game Theory?
What is game theory you ask? “Game
theory tries to understand the strategic actions of two or more
‘players’ in a given situation containing set rules and outcomes.
Any time we have a situation with two or more players that involves
known payouts or quantifiable consequences, we can use game theory to
help determine the most likely outcomes. The
focus of game theory is the game, which serves as a model of an
interactive situation among rational players. The
key to game theory is that one player's payoff is contingent on the
strategy implemented by the other player. The game identifies the
players' identities, preferences, and available strategies and how
these strategies affect the outcome. Depending on the model, various
other requirements or assumptions may be necessary. Game theory has a
wide range of applications, including psychology, evolutionary
biology, war, politics, economics, and business. Despite its many
advances, game theory is still a young and developing science.”
Game
Theory by Adam Hayes
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gametheory.asp
We
need to get in the game! We need to become viable and rational
players, otherwise we will be further marginalized by the system (The
Game) and consigned to the dust bin of history! Whether we know it or
not we are in The Game, the game of life. The ultimate goal is
survival, how do we not only survive, but thrive and succeed (based
upon our own definition of success) in a predatory and highly
competitive environment? Look at the definition of Game Theory it
speaks about being rational players.
Are we as African people in America rational players, if so why are
we on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder?! If this is a game why
aren’t we playing and engaging as a team within this highly
competitive pluralistic multi-ethnic society with a goal of winning?
Where are our coaches and strategists? Disorganization, racial
amalgamation, integration, assimilation, conspicuous consumption,
consumerism, lethargy and materialism are not winning strategies!
But if you look at our people and our situation this is what we see!
We no long talk about Black Power, that term is not even in our
lexicon any more! We foolishly think that because Barack Obama and
Kamala Harris were selected and allowed to be part of the system,
collectively we have arrived, that we are free and equal. This is
utter nonsense, it is a cunning strategy of the other “team” to
completely throw us off our game!
We need to wake up and realize what is happening, do what it takes
to seriously get in the game and play to win on our terms!
-30-
Our Village Is Not Well
Our Village Is Not Well
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
“Crime
and criminal behavior regardless of temporal or cultural definition,
occur not in a vacuum, but within a complex matrix of interpersonal,
social, intergroup relations and other eco-psychological forces.
Crime and criminality, their existential vicissitudes and emblematic
meanings, can only be usefully and appropriately deciphered and
pragmatically dealt with within the context of these forces. Crime
and criminality are social phenomena and are reflective of the social
system within which they occur.” Amos Wilson, Black on
Black Violence The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation In
Service of White Domination
page 11-12.
We
are witnessing/experiencing an escalation of internecine violence
within our communities so much so, people are adapting to the psychic
and emotional trauma, pain, suffering and loss in ways that are
becoming normalized. Before you castigate me for saying this and say
I am blaming the victim, let’s look at the definition of the words
norm or normal. Psychologically a norm is defined as: “a
representative standard or value for a given group, any pattern,
standard or representative performance for a group. (Dictionary of
Psychology page 306). In the field of Sociology a norm is defined as:
“shared rules and expectation guiding behavior in a society or
group, maintaining social order, defining cultural values, and
shaping interactions. The four types of social norms are:
folkways,mores, taboos and laws.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/norms-and-values.html
Normal means that people within a particular group follow and
conform to the values behavioral norms of their group.
By
this reckoning violence and dysfunctional behaviors are the norm in
many parts of our communities. Does this mean we are violent people
by nature? Not necessarily, it means we have been conditioned,
programmed and or induced to see violence as a value or acceptable
behavior. As we grapple with the escalating violence perpetrated on
all levels of our society we have to look for a cause a reason and
work to remedy and rectify this deadly pattern.
I
maintain America is a land of traumatized people. We have been
programmed by the ruling class to believe this is a land of
opportunity and for many it is/was. But at what cost? Many of the
European colonists who came to these shores were fleeing trauma and
social disruption in their homeland; religious persecution, political
conflict, incessant wars and economic privation. Most were sent here
to enrich the Pope’s, Western monarchs and the monopoly trading
companies who sponsored their voyages and chartered their colonial
establishments.
The
European settlers were traumatized because they were totally
unprepared for the climate, rigors and the struggles to survive so
many died. The indigenous inhabitants were traumatized by the
violence inflected upon them by the whites who blatantly disregarded
their culture, intruded onto their physical spaces, expropriated
their lands and disrespected their humanity. The Africans who were
forcibly brought here had already been traumatized by the wars, their
initial capture, kidnapping, bondage, the passage here and the
brutality of enslavement. The process repeated itself with each
successive wave of European immigrants, bonds persons, enslaved
Africans and the indigenous people they displaced!
We
have not healed from this collective devastation, yet we are
programmed to celebrate as if none of these atrocities ever happened.
Now there is a movement afoot to prevent even teaching and discussing
it. To add insult to injury the socialization and indoctrination
processes inflicted on our ancestors were designed to dehumanize
them, make them/us feel inferior, subhuman and less than in every way
possible. We have been subjected to generations of psychic trauma,
physica and emotional abuse.
Once
mechanization and heavy industry replaced human labor and agriculture
as the nation’s economic mainstays, we were deemed unnecessary,
unneeded and a liability. In fact during the War Between The States
1861-65 President Abraham Lincoln was planning to send people of
African ancestry to either Africa, the Caribbean or South America.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0014.204/--abraham-lincoln-and-the-politics-of-black-colonization?rgn=main;view=fulltext.
However his plan was thwarted by an assassin’s bullet. Since then
America has been wrestling with the question, what to do with its
formerly enslaved population and their descendants?
A
racist ideology permeated US culture since colonial times and
Afro-Americans always fought back against the lies and derogatory
stereotypes perpetuated against us. The ebb and flow of multi-
generational struggles throughout our sojourn here prompted the
oppressors to double down on ways to eliminate us either through
state sanctioned programs to physically decrease our numbers
(genocide) or through menticide, destroying our minds with
initiatives like forced sterilization, abortions, ecocide,
COINTELPRO, incarceration and miseducation.
Part
of their plan was to induce us to hate ourselves and trick us into
engaging in self-negation. American culture is violent, violence is
an accepted form of “entertainment” a cultural norm, in films,
video games, TV, Social Media etc. Black people consume an inordinate
amount of mass media and we’ve internalized the messages and values
embedded within it without knowing how it impacts our psyches. This
has become the norm. Media forms our worldview, shapes our desires
and aspirations and determines our behavior. “In order for Blacks
to assault, rape, rob and murder each other with notorious and
self-destructive intensity, to be estranged from their own bodies and
therefore subject them to all manner of health and physical
carelessness, neglect and self-mediated abuse to them, to make them
hosts to all manner of insatiably unhealthy appetites, they must
internalize Eurocentric racist hostility towards themselves;
internalize and claim as their own the European contempt for the
color of their skin and the physiognomy of their bodies. These Blacks
must take Eurocentric lies for truth and truth for lies and act
accordingly. They must see their bodies as the cause of pain and as
their enemy and consequently subject them them to disrespect and
murderous mutilation. They will destroy others who are clothed in a
body like their own for they must be the enemy too.” Amos Wilson,
Black on Black Violence The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilaton
In Service of White Domination
page106.
Unless
and until we grasp this reality and develop ways to counter this
program of menticide, we will continue to witness and experience the
maladaptive, self-destructive values and norms we see occurring in
our neighborhoods daily. We have to be honest with ourselves and
admit our village is not well and then begin the arduous work to heal
ourselves.
-30-
Mission Creep Towards All Out War
Mission Creep Towards All Out War
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
As we observe world
events we are witnessing alarming trends and patterns that do not
bode well for the prospects of peace and stability. The immediate
blimps on the global radar are the Ukraine-Russian conflict, Israel’s
genocidal assault on the Palestinians and the Yemen Houthi attacks on
shipping lanes in the strategic Red Sea targeting ships heading for
or supportive of Israel. Each one of these conflicts is inching
towards a tipping point that could easily lead to further escalation,
spiraling totally out of control, given the war mongering mindsets of
the parties involved.
In most wars the
largest causalities are civilians; innocent men women and children
not directly engaged in the fighting. In Gaza alone the main
causalities have been civilians, hospitals, non military targets
which by international law and moral standards are war crimes.
“Fresh
evidence of deadly unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip,
gathered by Amnesty International, demonstrates how Israeli forces
continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire
families with total impunity. The organization carried out an
investigation into four Israeli strikes, three in December 2023,
after the humanitarian pause ended, and one in January 2024, that
killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children, in Rafah, Gaza’s
southernmost governorate at a time when it was supposedly the
‘safest’ area in the strip, but where Israeli forces are
currently gearing up for a ground operation. Such an operation will
likely have devastating consequences for more than a million people
who are crammed within an area of 63 km2 following successive waves
of mass displacement. In all four attacks, the organization did not
find any indication that the residential buildings hit could be
considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the
buildings were military targets, raising concerns that these strikes
were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and must
therefore be investigated as war crimes.”
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-opt-new-evidence-of-unlawful-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-causing-mass-civilian-casualties-amid-real-risk-of-genocide
Israel
has denied water and cut off fuel supply lines, food and humanitarian
aid supplies to the Palestinians, which is clearly
a
war crime! Even the optics of the ongoing war are proving Israel has
lost whatever moral ground it may have had following the October 7,
2023 attacks by Hamas, which in and of itself is
questionable given Gaza is one of the most monitored and surveilled
areas in the world!
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/30/israel-palestine-gaza-hamas-war-idf-high-tech-surveillance/
In
Ukraine the Western media continuously promotes the canard Russia’s
Special Military Operation is an unmitigated imperialist attack on an
innocent country. The fact is Ukraine is one of the most corrupt
places on the planet and the US spent over
five billion dollars to topple the duly elected government of that
country in 2014.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
We
are not being told by the US media sock-puppets that the neo-Nazi
element within the Ukrainian government was waging an eight year war
against break away provinces who subsequently asked Russia for help
and Russia responded.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/the-war-on-donbas:-why-we-must-all-stand-against-fascism.
There
are other issues we are being kept in the dark about but I haven’t
the time nor the space to address them now.
My primary concern is that in all of these situations the United
States government, using our tax dollars is actively supporting the
oppression, murder and genocide in Gaza and Ukraine; to the tune of
billions of dollars not for our benefit or safety but the bottom line
of US predatory capitalists. “Billions
of dollars of profit for shareholders is to be made from selling
American gas to Europe indefinitely. Billions
of dollars are to be made by shareholders from selling weapons of
mass destruction to Ukraine and possibly other former Soviet Union
nations now in NATO, indefinitely.
Billions
of dollars of profit for shareholders are to be made from selling
financial services loans to a failing Ukrainian government
indefinitely. For America, the war in Donbas is no more than a
vehicle to create profit with the bonus of further marginalising and
isolating Russia in a continued economic war of global dominance.”
The
War on Donbas: Why we must all stand against fascism. By Fra Hughes
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/the-war-on-donbas:-why-we-must-all-stand-against-fascism,
Israel
is also a huge beneficiary of US largess in the form of weapons and
money .”The
United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100
separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza
war
began
Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions,
small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal
aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified
briefing.
The
triple-digit figure, which has not been previously reported, is the
latest indication of Washington’s extensive involvement in the
polarizing five-month conflict even as top U.S. officials and
lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel’s
military tactics in a campaign that has killed more than 30,000
people, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Only two approved
foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the
start of conflict
$106
million
worth
of tank ammunition and $147.5
million of
components needed to make 155 mm shells. Those sales invited public
scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed
Congress
to
approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority.” US
floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct
by John Hudson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/
NATO
is sleep walking into a wider conflict as they continue to send
weapons, materials and soldiers to Ukraine. Russia has warned French
president Macron French soldiers will be a prime target if they enter
the war on Ukrainian soil. Putin allies tell Macron: Any French
troops you sent to Ukraine will suffer fate of Napoleon’s army, by
Andrew Osborn
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-allies-tell-macron-any-french-troops-you-send-ukraine-will-suffer-fate-2024-02-28/
. Threats and counter-threats are not the best ways to resolve a
tense situation, hopefully saner heads will prevail, but don’t
count o n it.
Mayhem,
murder and genocide are being waged in our name by our government to
profit warmongers, eugenicists
and land grabbers! Are you comfortable with this?! If not, what are
you going to do about it? If you say you are for peace, what are you
doing to
slow
down or halt the creep to all out war/
all war all the time?! As Gil Scott Heron sang in his song Working
For Peace,
“We’ve got to work for Peace Peace ain’t coming this way If we
only work for Peace If everyone believed in Peace the way they say
they do. We’d have Peace. The only thing wrong with Peace is that
you can’t make no money from it. The Military and the Monetary.
They get together whenever they think its necessary. They’ve turned
our brothers and sisters into mercenaries. They are turning the
planet, into a cemetery... So this is a song about tomorrow. And
about how tomorrow can be better. if we all ‘Each one reach one,
Each one teach one.’ Nobody can do everything but everybody can do
something. Everyone must play a part. Everyone got to go to work,
Work for Peace. Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace. If you believe the
things you say, go to work. If you believe in Peace, time to go to
work. Can't be wavin your head no more, go to work”
Do
what you to make peace a reality. Make up your mind to hit them where
it hurts the most their bottom lines: boycott Israeli products, stop
supporting media and video games that promote war. Boycott Ukrainian
products, find out where the wheat in our baked goods comes from and
if its from Ukraine stop buying it until the war is over! Speak
up/out demand your elected officials stop funding wars, think for
yourself make up your own mind to choose truth over lies and peace
over war!
-30-
