Demographic Warfare: Weaponizing Immigration

At the end of 2014, the number of people, worldwide, forced to flee their homes rose to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago. displaced from their homes.

“The increase represents the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. Moreover, the report said the situation was likely to worsen still further.

Globally, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. If this were the population of a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest.

Refugees boat sinking at Christmas Island

Most of us believe that immigration occurs naturally, that the hordes of immigrants we see today, fleeing unbearable circumstances is the direct result of unfortunate circumstances that haphazardly plague nations around the world.  We conveniently forget the centuries of ravishing and plundering of  these unfortunate nations--rich in natural resources and brimming with economic potential--by colonizing and neo-colonizing powers. 

Australian treatment of refugees

No, not too many of us consider the possibility that the natural flow of immigration has been co-opted by global elites who deliberately create the abominable conditions that force desperate millions (pawns) to cut and run.  Yet despite our nation's wealth created through the plundering of these war-torn nations,  we allow the corporate owned mass media foster and fan the flames of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment without question. 

Refugees on journey to Australia

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Over 20 Petty Crimes that Landed People in Jail For Life Without Parole

As of last year, according to the report A Living Death Sentence: Sentenced to Die Behind Bars For WHAT? released by the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 3,200 people were serving life in prison without parole for non-violent crimes. Of the 3,278 prisoners--mostly racial minorities--doing life for nonviolent crimes, 63% were sentenced by federal courts; the rest are in nine state prison systems. Most of these cases were sentenced under mandatory minimum guidelines, for which judges had no choice but to dole out a life without parole sentence. People got life without parole for things like:

• Possessing a crack pipe
• Possessing a bottle cap containing a trace amount of heroin (too minute to be weighed)
• Having traces of cocaine in clothes pockets that were invisible to the naked eye but detected in lab tests
• Having a single crack rock at home
• Possessing 32 grams of marijuana (worth about $380 in California) with intent to distribute
• Passing out several grams of LSD at a Grateful Dead show
• Acting as a go-between in the sale of $10 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop
• Selling a single crack rock
• Verbally negotiating another man's sale of two small pieces of fake crack to an undercover cop
• Attempting to cash a stolen check
• Possessing stolen scrap metal (the offender was a junk dealer)—10 valves and one elbow pipe
• Possessing stolen wrenches
• Siphoning gasoline from a truck
• Stealing tools from a shed and a welding machine from a front yard
• Shoplifting three belts from a department store
• Shoplifting several digital cameras
• Shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store
• Taking a television, circular saw, and power converter from a vacant house
• Breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night
• Making a drunken threat to a police officer while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car
• Being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm
• Taking an abusive stepfather's gun from their shared home

The data examined by the ACLU comes from the federal prison system and nine state penal systems that responded to open records requests. In other words, the true number of nonviolent offenders serving life without parole is much higher.

"For 3,278 people, it was nonviolent offenses like stealing a $159 jacket or serving as a middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana. An estimated 65% of them are Black. Many of them were struggling with mental illness, drug dependency or financial desperation when they committed their crimes. None of them will ever come home to their parents and children. And taxpayers are spending billions to keep them behind bars.

At the very least, 3,728 will die in prison for nonviolent offenses, costing the US nearly $2 billion. The ACLU makes recommendations for reform. It calls on the states and federal government to eliminate laws that mandate or allow life without parole for nonviolent crimes, and strongly urges state governors, as well as the Obama administration, to commute such disproportionate punishments. "Life without parole sentences for nonviolent offenses defy common sense," it concludes, and "are grotesquely out of proportion to the conduct they seek to punish."

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The Bought and Paid For Black Misleadership Class and the Neutraization of Black Politics

Glen Ford, creator of Black Agenda Report, who so often writes about the "Obama delusional state", where Black politics has been essentially neutralized, presented “The Black Misleadership Class Versus the Movement and its Legacy," to friends of Black Agenda Report gathered at New York City’s historic Riverside Church to celebrate the publication’s 7th anniversary on Friday, October 18.

The "Black Mis-Leadership Class", according to Glen Ford, "sees its own personal financial and social interests as being synonymous with the progress of black people as a whole. This class does not seek transformation of society, it seeks only their own elevation within the existing structures. The rest of Black Amereica,, as far as they're concerned, is supposed to applaud their individual success no matter what is actually happening to the masses of black people at the bottom. It is the politics of putting black faces in high places and to hell with those of us stuck at the bottom, or those of us who are below the bottom in the U.S. prison gulag."

Ford used the examples of rising political star, Cory Booker and already established political star President Barack Obama, who, in reality, are both front men for capital, front men for "the man" and front men for the empire, to illustrate the inherent danger of the black establishment to the American black population. What danger? The disastrous consequences that will result if these self-serving politicians succeed--and it appears as if they most certainly are-- at eliminating the mass movement of African Americans who traditionally acted as a "countervailing force to the power of capital," becoming even more influential internally in Black America, leaving "little hope of effective progressive resistance to the rule of Wall Street, its servants in government, and for peace."

“Has the fake-progressive, fake-liberal and in fact deeply conservative FTBP not been granted far too much of a pass on the power-friendly and authoritarian content of his character by those who have been bamboozled into thinking there was something inherently and magically progressive, egalitarian, and democratic about the initially and outwardly startling fact of a black family entering the White House in the land of chattel slavery? As some of us on the Left said from the beginning of Obama’s celebrity, the real story behind the Obama phenomenon has been the ruling class playing the race card in a different way than in King’s time, flipping it, so to speak – a winning strategy for the Democrats at the national level in the post-Civil Rights era, when changing demographics and the more superficial victories of the Civil Rights Movement have made victory possible for nonwhite candidates in national elections. -- Paul Street

Martin Luther King, Jr. is, undoubtedly, rolling in his grave, ironically,  at the election of the first "Black" President, who has managed to crush MLK's dream of:

“...forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws – racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of out society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction society of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”

Going "Beyond Obama" requires successfully passing through and politically defeating that ancient black American political current that holds that achieving the maximum number of black faces in high places is thee root to black progress, to black upward mobility, to black nirvana."



Links:

Black is Back Coalition

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It's "Always Nigger Season" Even When the President is Black

Or I might add especially when the President is black. At least when 'W' did something horribly  racist and criminal, as he often did, there were loud voices protesting  in opposition. But when Obama does the same thing, it’s considered good leadership. President Obama received 95% of the black vote. In return, African Americans received a check that came back stamped: insufficient funds. He tells African Americans to stop whining and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps while his actions set these same people up to fail and keep them trapped by his support of legislation--specifically, in this case, by actively trying to maintain racially discriminatory prison sentences--that further empowers and emboldens the New Jim Crow Lulled to sleep by the rhetoric of color-blindness and the appearance of great racial progress, most of us are blind this new form, or should I say, formless invisible institutional racism.

In UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CORNELIUS DEMORRIS BLEWETT (12-5226) and JARREOUS JAMONE BLEWITT (12-5582),, "a crack cocaine case brought by two currently incarcerated defendants seeking retroactive relief from racially discriminatory mandatory minimum sentences imposed on them in 2005," President Obama quietly tried to enforce racially biased federal crack cocaine laws that have since been repealed" by the  2010 Fair Sentencing Act. The Obama administration asked a federal appeals court to make sure thousands of people--almost all of them poor and most of them black--remain locked in prison despite a total lack of justification.

Crack cocaine and powder cocaine are "pharmacologically identical," the only difference being who consumes these pharmacologically identical substances: crack cocaine, the drug of mostly poor black folk, and powder cocaine, the drug of wealthier white folk. To be sure, young African American males are the most disposable, yet at the same time, profitable--for the for-profit prison industry--demographic in this prison nation. Not only do the private prisons prosper, corporations can put these people to work for a few cents an hour, not to mention, these human-beings are excluded from poverty statistics and unemployment data thus masking the severity of issues more than they already are.

Although Black people make up only 34% of crack users, they are 85% of those convicted on crack charges. As early as 2011, 30,000 people were serving time for crack charges in federal prison, 85% of them Black.

“…persistent bias occurred with respect to the contemporary enforcement of drug laws where, in the 1990s and early 2000s, blacks constituted a minority of regular users of crack cocaine but more than 80 percent of crack defendants.” -- Harvard Professor William J. Stuntz

As legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues, "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." One such strategy is through targeting black men and women (often mothers) through the "War on Drugs," decimating communities of color.

“There are more African American adults under correctional  control today, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. As of 2004, more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the year the 15th amendment was ratified explicitly prohibiting laws that deny the right to vote on the basis or race....During the Jim Crow era, poll taxes and literacy tests, circumvented the 15th amendment and operated to deny African Americans the right to vote. A black child born today has less of a chance of being raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. This is due in large part to the mass incarceration of black men....The mass incarceration of black men take them out of the dating pool at the years they would be most likely to commit to a partner, to a family.  But, what's worse is that by branding them criminals and felons at early ages, often before they're even old enough to vote, they're rendered permanently unemployable in the legal job market, virtually guaranteeing that most will cycle in and out of prison, sometimes, for the rest of their lives. 
[...]
Today, in many states, felon disenfranchisement laws accomplish what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not. This does not effect some small segment of the African American community. To the contrary, in many large urban areas, more than half of working age African American men now have criminal records and thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In some cities--Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago (80%), DC--the statistics are far worse." -- Michelle Anderson, highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State

The incarceration rate has quintupled over the last 30 years, from a prison population of 300,000 in the early 1970s to well over 2 million! During this same period of time that the incarceration rates increased exponentially, crime rates have fluctuated, leading most sociologists and criminologists to admit that incarceration rates and crime rates have moved independently of one another.

So for now the grant of en banc review puts Blewett relief for Sixth Circuit prisoners on hold. Why?  Is  the Department of Justice afraid of re-hearing thousands of old cases?  If so, can't President Obama just commute all of the pre-Fair-Sentencing-Act minimums to their equivalent minimums under the new law? Or is the reason for en banc review far more nefarious?

Links:

How the mass incarceration of black men harms black women.


Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer

Stop the Drug War

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It's Always "Nigger Season"

Always “Nigger Season”  by Rev. Reynard N. Blake, Jr.

What is “Nigger Season?”

It’s George Zimmerman walking free

It’s all-white juries

When Skittles and iced tea become weapons

It’s a “justice system”

That’s soooo proficient

Putting black people in jail

And, can’t get justice for one

It’s 44 days for a killer to be arrested

It’s a damn “knock, knock” joke

Glib to black death

It’s white expectations of black violence

It’s Fox News jumping with glee

It’s their analysis being justified

It’s “Stop and Frisk” being justified

It’s colleges and universities fiending for black athletes

But dismantling affirmative action

Killing voting rights

Here’s what kills rednecks

Specifically, Republicans and Conservatives

This is what they think:

“A nigger president”

YET

That president

Wanting a “bromance”

Having a schoolboy crush on Republicans

Acting like one

Wanting to do their bidding

He kills for them

With them

Drones and all

Brown-skinned folks run

Soon to be turned on to Americans

Spy on them, too

We go from COINTELPRO to COINTELBRO

AND they STILL think he’s a nigger

(Like their boy, Clarence Thomas)

Conservatives and the GOP

Making his girls political fodder

Sanctioning one of their fellow “Crackers”

Talking about Michelle’s butt

It’s that same Cracker having fantasies

Of days of yore

Dreaming of being a slave owner

Or, a ship’s captain

Seeking the “good ol’ days”

Having his way with nigger bitches

Enhancing his proficiency with the lash

Bible on his right hip

(Analyzing it wickedly)

Gun on his left hip

Mastering the use of shackles

Aroused at thoughts

Wiping Native Americans and Africans

Whipping Native Americans and Africans

Christianizing Native Americans and Africans

(By dehumanizing them)

Off the face of the earth

Sensenbrenner feeling good about those fantasies

GOP couldn’t even feign to disavow him

But then, why should they?

If the hood fits WEAR IT!

DAMN HIM!

DAMN THEM ALL!

Some 2520s

Thinking, but not saying “nigger”

Prejudging black people

Associating them with the worst

Expecting them to be:

“The Chuckle People”

Joking and singing on TV and movies

And in the office

Or, acting like orifices

Or, expecting them to go to the “Big House”

And, I’m not writing about the U of M football field

Although for some that’s pleasing

“Run that ball, nigger!”

(“Look at that nigger run!”)

“Jump over that hurdle, nigger!”

“Slam that ball, nigger!”

“All the day long, nigger!”

“All the live-long day, nigger!”

Then, when those “niggers” are off the field

Or, the dance floor

Some 2520s think:

“Serve me quick, nigger!”

“I’ll pay you less nigger!”

“I’m Paula Deen, nigger!”

“This is Dixie, nigger!”

“Rather, this is America, nigger!”

“You’re just monkeys, nigger!”

(“What’s a ‘honky,’ nigger?”)

(“Why do you niggers say, ‘My nigger?’”)

“You just steal, nigger!”

“You’re hard to believe, nigger!”

“Even when you academically achieve, nigger!”

“You’re still OJ, nigger!”

“Not always OK, nigger!”

“I’m going to follow you in this store, nigger!”

“Even if you can pay for something, nigger!”

“You’ve got to have bad credit, nigger!”

“Killing Trayvon’s OK, nigger!”

(“Zimmerman’s my hero, nigger!”)

“Keep wearin’ a hoodie, nigger!”

“I’ll drop a cap in you, nigger!”

“I won’t even go to jail, nigger!”

(“Cause I can get better lawyers, nigger!”)

(“That’s why I don’t go to jail on drug charges, nigger!”)

“Be gone, nigger!”

“Get out my way, nigger!”

“Know your place, nigger!”

“They’re called ghettos, nigger!”

“Or, called barrios, nigger!”

“Or, reservations, nigger!”

“All of you look the same, anyway!”

“I’m always right, nigger!”

“Because I’m white, nigger!”

So, brothers and sisters of all hues

Of all races

Considering the events of the day

Any day

In America

Or, globally

How should I feel?

What should I believe?

Based on the evidence

Based on my experience

Based on what I see:

Without rhyme or reason

IT’S ALWAYS NIGGER SEASON!

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SwiSS Neutrality Nazi Style?

As a haven for tax evaders and money launderers, and the home of Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the world's central bank--accountable to no one--I always questioned the letter and spirit of Swiss neutrality, especially during WWII.   Despite its neutral, tolerant (women didn't get the right to vote until 1971!), and peaceful image, Switzerland has a strong military, and I might add, racist, tradition. Ironically, it is Europe's best-armed nation. Military service remains compulsory for male citizens under the constitution. Moreover, for such a neutral country, they sure are very involved in the affairs of the international community.

“The country has been a member of the UN since 2002, although it has, in fact, fully participated in the activities of the specialised agencies such as Unesco, WHO, FAO, ILO, Unicef and others, for decades.

A nationwide vote was needed to join the world body and some 55%  voted in favour. Switzerland is a member of Nato's Partnership for Peace program, but there are no plans to join the military alliance, as this would compromise neutrality.

UN membership has been hailed as a major step forward into the concert of nations but, in fact, Switzerland has continually supported international peace efforts since the Second World War, while stopping short of joining UN peacekeeping forces.

The country has been involved in truce supervision work following the Korean War, and in the Middle East since 1967. Swiss election observers have been sent to Africa and eastern Europe, and a 220-strong Swiss army company (Swisscoy) has been stationed for several years in Kosovo in support of international peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans.

Switzerland was an early member of the Council of Europe, and more recently of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

And isn't it a little suspicious that this neutral policy greatly benefits and protects the same group that signed the Act on the Neutrality of Switzerland  into existence: the powerful?  Originally, it was the Great Powers (Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia), but, nevertheless, continues to benefit and protect the assets of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on earth.

I mean, what made Switzerland so special that even Hitler himself seemed to respect their impartial status? Could it be that Switzerland was a secret lifeline, an endless stream of revenue for the Nazi dictator?  The answer is yes, and to be fair, it was a two-way street, as there is no question that Switzerland, as well as many other great powers profited greatly from the Fuehrer's victims.  Five BIS directors were tried for war crimes after WWII. Of the five, three were convicted, but served very little time.

Swiss banks not only helped fund the Nazi war effort by accepting gold and other assets, they laundered the  money that Germany could use to buy material, and accept looted property that was being held for top Nazi officials; Switzerland also made it possible for top Nazi officers to escape justice. Even worse, until very recently, Swiss bank officials refused to help Holocaust survivors and the families of its victims claim THEIR assets, insisting, among other things, on death certificates for people who perished in the concentration camps.

Interestingly, the dissolution of the Knights Templar occurred at the same time as the founding of Switzerland...okay, two months later. The Swiss cross is a simplified Templar's cross, using the same color combination.   Look at the following pictures of the Nazis invading Poland in 1939. Notice the distinctive white crosses--the same cross displayed on the Swiss flag--on the tanks, which, mysteriously disappeared from view at a later time. Make of it what you will.

Nazi tanks roll into Poland - September 1939

Germans invade Poland - September 1939

“The Power of financial capitalism had [a] far reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

This system was to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks, which were themselves private corporations.

Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence co-operative politicians by subsequent rewards in the business world." -- Carrol Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966 - [Bill Clinton's mentor and Georgetown University professor]

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Every 28 Hours a Black Person is Killed by Law Enforcement.

FBI statistics are becoming increasingly race neutral in their reportage, and for a good reason, they don't want you and I to know the truth: that, despite our Black president, racism did not disappear, it's alive and well, albeit, much more intelligent, a new invisible racism, if you will.

The disproportionate number or percentage of African Americans that are mass incarcerated (prisons are criminogenic--breeders of crime), murdered as a result of the "war on drugs",  extra-judicially executed (killing by police/security guards--non self-defense--that happens without trial or any due process), not to mention the  doubled rate of unemployment and lack of opportunity is clearly a systematic attack on the Black community. This does not bode well for future generations.

There is no centralized database that documents killings by police, extrajudicial or otherwise, so Kali Akuno of the Malcolom X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) and his colleagues, combed through all the mainstream media and police reports from 2012, cross referencing the names, race, factors and circumstances surrounding their deaths, and then following up on leads, concluding in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement report: A Curriculum for Operation Ghetto Storm: Report on the 2012 Extrajudicial Killings of 313 Black People by Police, Security Guards and Vigilantes that every 28 hours, a Black person--primarily Black males between the ages of 18 and 30--is executed by law enforcement. At the very least, without due process, 313 Black people were killed in 2012, most of whom were unarmed. Please note that this does not include the number of Latinos.

“The United States government is intent on creating more and more laws and practices that target Black, oppressed, and impoverished communities. The aim is social control to maintain the status quo, and they will go to whatever extent necessary, including extrajudicial killings and acts of genocide, to achieve this aim." -- Kali Akuno, organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement..

The government structuring of underground economies, in particular, the drug/sex trade, and its international circuit of capital underlies and perpetuates the ongoing attack on Black America, which relies on police brutality, police brutality that is rooted in the American system itself, a system based on violence, inequality, racism, white privilege, and profit-seeking exploitation.

From Your World News:

“What does this do? This message -- this is a very skillful message used by racists to make the whites who aren’t racists think that the rate of crime in the Black community is so high. This keeps the Black community in the image of a criminal. It makes it appear that anyone is the Black community is a criminal. And as soon as this impression is given, then it makes it possible, or paves the way to set up a police-type state in the Black community, getting the full approval of the white public when the police come in, use all kind of brutal measures to suppress Black people, crush their skulls, sic dogs on them, and things of that type. And the whites go along with it. Because they think that everybody over there’s a criminal anyway. This is what --the press does this. -- Malcolm X”

“They accuse us of what they themselves are guilty of. This is what the criminal always does. They’ll bomb you, then accuse you of bombing yourself. They’ll crush your skull then accuse you of attacking him. This what the racists have always done -- the criminal, the one who has criminal processes developed to a science. Their practice is a criminal action. And then use the press to make you victim -- look like the victim is the criminal, and the criminal is the victim.” -- Malcolm X

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Exiled Former Black Panther Assata Shakur’s Elevation to Number One Domestic Terrorist on the FBI List?

One must ask the question, why--especially in light of COINTELPRO repression, the FBI's counterintelligence program's effect on black leadership and their terrorism in the black community--since 2005, did the FBI double the $1 million bounty on exiled former Black Panther Assata Shakur’s head, naming her the number one domestic terrorist? Assata's a 60+ year old grandmother and this event--the killing of New Jersey officer--occurred forty years ago! Why, so many years later, are they putting former political activist, Assata Shakur in the limelight?  Why are they bringing this old issue back into the public eye?

And then, the mysterious death of Malcolm X's 28-year old grandson, Malcolm Shabazz in Mexico, where he was to meet with labor organizers, and who, much like his grandfather, was outspoken about the mistreatment of African Americans in the US. and who, much like his grandfather, has been maligned in the press, in the grandson's case, for his troubled past, in particular, an unfortunate incident that he was, indeed, responsible for when he was 12-years old, but an incident that he already paid the price.  Moreover, like his grandfather, he was constantly monitored by the U.S. government.  Back in February, Shabazz was arrested by the FBI on unknown charges while en route to Iran to attend the Hollywoodism International Conference. Shabazz released a lengthy statement via former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney's Facebook page back in March addressing the arrest and stating that federal agents were not involved.

I sincerely appreciate the care and concern of the People over my well-being after Press TV’s report of the most recent events which have transpired regarding the F.B.I.’s harassment of me.

Given the storm of lies, and half-truths that come with being associated with being the descendant of El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, also known as Minister Malcolm X, any and everything that I do; great or small, good or not so good, real or imagined is subject to controversy. However, in this missive I will take this opportunity to properly and fully disclose what transpired.

In the beginning of 2012 I had been informed that I was under investigation by the F.B.I.’s Counter Terrorism Task Force Unit located in Goshen, N.Y.

The agents of this division-and in collaboration with others-have visited several residences of which I was known by them to frequent. However, they would never come when they knew me to actually be there. They would leave their cards with the residents asking them to tell me to call them, and then would tell surrounding residents to observe the house and to notify them if they saw me.

These are the homes of long-time friends, and very close supporters. Yet, when federal agents begin knocking on someone’s door on multiple occasions to snoop, and ask questions, whether one is guilty of an offense or not, it’s enough to coerce people into distancing themselves from you. This cheap tactic employed by the F.B.I. is a means of agitation and harassment. They seek to neutralize my networking abilities.

They have visited locations in California, Chicago, Miami and most aggressively in New York.

People were advising me that if I had nothing to hide, then I should just contact them as requested and cooperate. Though I must say that in these kind of matters I am of a particular ethic. For one, I have been engaged in no criminal activity of their concern, and they could have located me if they so chose. Secondly, I don’t recognize the authority in them beckoning me.

It wasn’t even until my mother informed me that they had been contacting her that I truly became agitated. She advised me to see what they had to say, and so I obliged the next time they came around looking for me. My encounter was with 2 federal agents of Goshen, N.Y.’s Counter Terrorism Task Foci Unit. The primary agent identified himself as Special Agent Tom Brozicky.

They expressed concern over-as they put it-my “international travels”; I have lived and studied in Damascus, Syria for over a year, and now the U.S. is instigating conflict within the very same region; I went on ex-congresswoman/former presidential candidate Cynthia Mckinney’s delegation along with Dr. Randy Short to Libya, and met with Leader Muammar Gadhafi one week prior to N.A.T.O. intervention and I was most recently getting ready to travel to Tehran, Iran to be a participant of the International Fajr Film Festival and give a lecture addressing the issues of Hollywood and violence:

- Modern Violence and Terrorism,
- Provoking clashes between religions and populations

I was picked up by authorities after I filed for a visa to Iran, and 2 days prior to my departure. A detective squad from the City of Middletown Police Department surrounded me in the street about 2 blocks from where I was residing. They asked me my name, and I gave them an alias, but they were already well aware of who I actually was. I didn’t tell them my real name because I didn’t know what was going on. When I was brought before a Judge of City of Middletown court I was surprised to be informed that I was being charged with Grand Larceny, and False Impersonation charge. Then I was sent to jail, and told to appear again 7 days later. Then following court date the bogus charge of Grand Larceny, which they only put to justify stopping me in first place, was dropped. And they left me to face the False Impersonation. I was offered 90 days for the offense of giving the authorities the wrong name which I declined before bailing out after 2 weeks.

When I was being held within the belly of the beast on trumped up charges, to my rescue came the journalist at Press TV based in Iran. My relationship with powerful and progressive news outfit began in April of 2012, and prior to that I had discussions with their journalist regarding current events internationally. I developed a positive rapport with some of them, and as a result was invited to travel to Iran to discuss the impact of Hollywood in stereotyping Muslims, Iranians and African people. From January 15th through 18th, 2013, I was a featured interviewee for the Press TV documentary “The Façade of the American Dream”. And prior to my date of departure to Iran, Lifetime television released a television bio-picture called “Betty and Coretta” which was a sensationalistic misrepresentation of my grandparents, my mother and me. This film aside from being poorly acted, and shallow in depth also threatened to inflame old controversies, and open unhealed wounds and to remind the public of sad outcomes without ever identifying B.O.S.S.I., the C.I.A., F.B.I. and other forces that set the climate for my grandfather’s assassination, and made my family a long-suffering casualty of COINTELPRO, and other anti-Black repression programs. Naturally, anything done to stir up old hatred of The Shabazz Family will impact me as the name-sake, and first male heir of Malcolm X, and whether I am high or low in fortunes does not exempt me from this reality.

The formula for a public assassination is: the character assassination before the physical assassination; so one has to be made killable before the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then deemed justifiable. And when the time arrives for these hits to be carried out you’re not going to see a C.I.A. agent with a suit and tie, and a badge that says “C.I.A.” walk up to someone, and pull the trigger. What they will do is to out-source to local police departments in the region of their target, and to employ those that look like the target of interest to infiltrate the workings in order to set up the environment for the eventual assassination (character, physical/incarceration, exile) to take place.

For several months prior to my arrest in late January, 2013 I faced a pattern of harassment from law enforcement which is usually reserved for important figures. On Thursday, November 1, 2012 @ 11:53pm in the park circle area of Middletown, N.Y. I was stopped by officers of the Middletown Police Department, and given a ticket for “J-Walking” (crossing in the middle of the street), which then escalated into a “Disorderly Conduct” supposedly because of the exchange of words that I had with the officers. I told them that they couldn’t possibly be serious for writing me a “J-Walking ticket”, that I didn’t appreciate how they were treating me and that they

shouldn’t be looking at me as less of a man because they were in police uniform. For this I was arrested, the officers stole the little amount of money that I had on me, they then stripped me and threw me in a freezing precinct cell for the remainder of that early morning. I was finally taken before the “Judge Steven Brockett” around 1:30pm. He gave me an unreasonable bail, and then ordered that I be remanded to the Orange county Jail.

This penalty may seem a bit extreme or harsh to most of you, but here is where it gets worse: On Tuesday, October 30th, exactly 2 nights prior to this incident, the same officer “J Berman” who wrote me the ticket for “J-Walking” and “Disorderly Conduct” stopped me coming from out of a store in the same area, and questioned me as to what I was doing.

I told him that I was coming out of the store. He asked to see what I bought which was a pack of sun flower seeds. I had actually just so happened to be eating a few while he was talking to me, and I spit one of the shells on the ground. At this point officer “J Berman” threatened to write me a ticket for littering. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded, but I went home that night.

Yet, it still doesn’t even begin there. I had an encounter with other officers of the Midletown Police Department one week prior to officer “J Berman’s” threats to write me a ticket for spitting a sun flower seed on the ground: I was coming out of a restaurant with my mother, and her friend. As the 3 of us entered the car to leave 2 police cars converged on our vehicle, and boxed us in. My mother was petrified. With guns drawn I was then ordered to step out of the back seat. I asked them why to which they replied that I had several warrants for my arrest. I told them that they were mistaken, but I still complied with their request. Humiliated in front of all on-lookers I was then thrown on the car while the officers ripped through my pockets. After they were done they said that it was my lucky day because I actually didn’t have any warrants at all, and so I was free to go! One of these officer’s name was “R. Ribeiro”…

You may wonder if it could possibly get any worse than this. Well, it does! Approximately 3 weeks prior to the public humiliation of my mother, and me by “R Ribeiro” and another officer of the Middletown Police Department I found myself subject to the discrimination and prejudice of Mayor Joseph M. Destefano of Middletown, N.Y. himself. A friend, and I went out to eat at a restaurant in Middletown, N.Y. which is owned by the Mayor, and to our

surprise he appeared from nowhere and asked us to leave. When we inquired as to why he stated that officials of the Middletown Police Department told him not to let us patronize his establishment. Mind you that this goes without incident.

As I stand for the people, God-Willing, I would pray that the same people wouldn’t hesitate to stand for me. If these unjust and heinous actions are tolerated and allowed to be done to me without recourse, then no one is safe. Just as Huewy P Newton of the Black Panther Party stated that police are in the white community to protect and serve, yet occupy ours like a foreign troop… I tell you that we shouldn’t fall victim to the conditioning of feeling inferior or fearful at the presence of law enforcement for no apparent reason.

With that being said, I was not arrested by federal agents. I was taken in by a squad from the City of Middletown, N.Y.’s Police Department. I was not being held in an “undisclosed location” so to speak. I was actually being held in the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y. However, from the time that I was booked at the precinct, to standing before a Judge the next day who told me to come back in 7 more, to being processed at the Orange County Jail and up until 7 days later I was not permitted to make any calls to notify anyone of my status; as though I had just been kidnapped from of the street.

Unfortunately, until this day my family hasn’t been fully abreast of my situation as I haven’t had the opportunity to properly consult with any of them. Dr. Randy Short who notified Press TV of my situation is a close comrade of mine who was on our delegation in Libya. Media reports from Press TV about my situation were not intended to create controversy. In reality, I have a few associates that are affiliated with this reputable International media outlet, and they had expected to meet with me in Iran. So when I disappeared, and rumors spread, the inability to get concise information from a credible source prompted them to rouse public attention on my behalf, for which I am grateful. In April of 2012 I had the opportunity to be a guest analyst/contributor on Press TV. This network has a large following all over the world, and millions find it’s news, documentaries and programming to be both an educational, and insightful alternative to the conglomerated, and highly biased mainstream American and British news media. Regarding the Source magazine, nothing that they published was vetted by me, and was made by persons, at best, vaguely familiar with my situation. Further, I have never had an affiliation or relationship with The Source, nor have they ever directly consulted with me about anything. -- Malcolm X's 28-year old grandson, Malcolm Shabazz

From Miguel Suarez:

"To who responds, I am Miguel Suarez, leader of a labor movement in the United States and I am accompanied by Malcolm X’s grandson. His name is Malcolm Shabazz and he wanted to see if it is possible to to speak and publish our history in their [publication]…what we saw in Mexico City."[..]He was murdered. He was in Mexico City and I believe they attempted to rob him and he didn’t allow it, so they beat him to death and he died on his way to the hospital,” said Ruiz. “This is all I can confirm, everything else is under investigation for the meantime.”

Regarding the Assata Shakur issue, Dhoruba bin Wahad, former Black Panther and co-founder of the Black Liberation Army claims that domestic law enforcement--FBI, Department of Homeland Security, etc.-- is at odds with Obama. Why?  President Obama's agenda to "reemphasize economic development and economic cooperation" in Latin America, in particular Cuba, and that will require covertly deconstructing the Cuba embargo and to "co-opt and counter the effects of the new so-called leftist geopolitics there".  In order to make this possible, the extraordinarily profitable--to domestic law enforcement--"war on drugs" will have to take a back seat, which probably means a substantial loss of funding.    The US is reasserting dominance in a post Castro-Chavez Latin America as the geo-economic center for Latin American nations.  Dhourba bin Wahad claims that “the recent Jay-Z/Beyonce trip was about opening up Cuba” to U.S. tourism, “to disrupt and undo the Cuban revolution.”  In other words, he believes that Shakur’s elevation to number one domestic terrorist on the FBI list “represents the disgruntlement of U.S. law enforcement” with this  new approach towards Latin America.

There is no doubt that Assata Shakur is a pawn in the chess game of US imperial diplomacy, but this the only explanation? Hardly.

"Assata Shakur could not have been named “most wanted terrorist” without the explicit approval of the first black president and his attorney general. In doing so, they have declared open war on the black liberation movement, something that J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO were only able to do in secret. [snip]

Forty years later though, we live in the era of secret kidnappings, regular torture, ghost prisons and executive branch murder by drones or special ops teams. Today the federal Department of Homeland Security funds counter-terrorism fusion centers which openly disseminate the kind of inflammatory and fanciful disinformation to local police and security contractors about those the government wants targeted that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI agents had to come around and whisper in their ears. Now that is progress.-- Bruce Dixon

Here's another take:



One thing for sure, putting Assata on the Top 10 Most Wanted Terrorist list will keep Cuba on the state sponsors of terror list, along with Iran, Sudan, and Syria, and somehow, I doubt President Obama objects.

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President Obama: The More Effective Evil?

For some time now, Black Agenda Report has been calling the Obama administration not the lesser of two but the more effective evil, able to enact measures that white Democrats or Republicans could not without massive public opposition.

Is President Obama the black face of white supremacy?
So what has the impact of Barack Obama's presidency--America's first black presidency--been on the African American community, who has always possessed an "instinctive distrust of power" as Glen Ford says, and humanity at large?  What happens when that power has a black face? Is the Obama administration simply the continuation of the Bush administration?  Is President Obama the white establishment's perfect weapon to pacify the black community, normally the most progressive constituency?  Is Obama's "Race to the Top" Bush's "No Child Left Behind" on steroids?What impact has Obama's presidency had on the legacy of African American's resisting and opposing the United States' imperial wars?  What impact have Barack Obama's policies had on the African continent?  Was the election of Barack Obama the death of black politics?  All of these questions and more are answered in the documentary below.

"The more we have black people reaching the higher ranks of the presidency, the business world, politics, entertainment, even...it  makes it appear to people on the outside looking in that we're co-signing onto this or that we actually are doing much better than we are.  You wouldn't know that there are 2.3 million people in prison--we make up almost half of them--that we're being murdered in the streets...and you can just go through the list of all the social problems that exist.  But it makes it look as though we're doing much better than we are even though things are just as bad, if not worse since Martin Luther King died.  It makes it look as if we're co-signing onto these things being done."--  Ben Woods, Students Against Mass Incarceration

Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish "recovery" that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups, according to a new study from the Urban Institute. “It was already dismal,” Darrick Hamilton, a professor at the New School in New York, said of the wealth gap between black and white households. “It got even worse.”

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Psychiatric Totalitarianism and the Role of Psychiatry in Nazi Germany.

This talk (below) took place in Harlem in the early 1990s at a time when Dr. Peter Breggin was blowing the whistle on and conducting a campaign against the racist eugenic program commonly known as the Federal Violence Initiative.

He describes the roots of biological, genetic and racist psychiatry in Nazi Germany. He tells of the grim history of the organized murder of Germany’s mental patients. He also shows how the American Psychiatric Association supported the killing of mentally challenged children in the United States.

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Are We Living in a Post Racial America? Or, Jim Crow Junior America?

After all, as the New York Times claimed, the election of President Obama into the White House, swept "away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive". Really? Then, why are the African Americans suffering more than any other group of people at this time? Remember, many of the white supremacy members said they voted for Obama to send the country into a tailspin...foment a race war.  One former member, Tim Zaal, said, "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise." 

"Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites." -- Neo-Nazi, with the pen name, "LastOfMyKind"

For instance, under Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD’s practice of “stop and frisk” - — practice of officers stopping city residents on the street and searching them- increased to 600,000 stops performed last year. "87% of those stopped last year were black or Hispanic, a number disproportionate to their share of the population. And just 7 percent of the stops resulted in arrests, meaning the vast majority of those stopped committed no crime. The NYPD argues the practice reduces crime, but it has been coming under increasingly intense criticism in recent months".

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The Real Rosa Parks, A Radical Activist and Top NAACP Investigator.

1964-Black children integrate pool of
Monson Motel. To force them out, owner
pours acid into the water.

It's hard to imagine that the true story behind the American Civil Rights Movement could possibly be any darker and more sinister than what we've been told, but it is. It's hard to imagine that the bus boycott was anything more than the right to choose where to sit on a bus, but it is. It's hard to imagine that Rosa Parks was anyone other than the tired, dignified seamstress who “refused to give up her seat” on a Montgomery bus, whose random act served to help launch the Civil Rights Movement, but she is.

So, why don't we know this?  Could it be, the powers that be want us to believe the only way change occurs is through magical random acts of courage?  Not through non-violent mass organizing and the the hard work of regular individuals coming together to build the infrastructure necessary for an effective movement?

Well, thank goodness for people like Danielle L. McGuire, author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, who, after researching the Recy Taylor case, discovered documentation that proved Rosa Parks was a top investigator into the routine and ritual rape of black women by white men in the mid-1940s. She worked on behalf of brutalized black women, helping to catalyze one of the more important, but wholly overlooked, building blocks for the American Civil Rights movement, for well over ten years before she “refused to give up her seat” on that  Montgomery bus on December 1,1955.

Integrating St. Augustine's "white only" beaches.

The bus boycott was so much more than what we've been led to believe. It was actually a well-thought out, well planned "woman's movement for dignity, respect and bodily integrity".  Prior to the bus boycott, there were more than a decade of cases shedding light on how black women were humiliated, assaulted, harassed and mistreated on the buses, as well as in the community at large.  As Ms. McGuire pointed out, it would take more than choice of seat to make so many walk to and from work, church, school, the store, etc., in all types of weather for 381 days .

The brutal sexual violence of black women by white men, occurring at the same time that black men risked lynching, if they even glanced at a white woman, demonstrates the role that weaponized sexuality played in maintaining white supremacy. This, of course, dates back to the end of the Civil War, where interlocking race and sex was used in an effort to undermine the postwar politics of non-racial citizenship.

It's no wonder we're so thoroughly conditioned to fear sexuality. What good is a weapon if it doesn't make the people tremble in fear?

Martin Luther King's Last Testimony

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

— The final words from Martin Luther King's last speech, given in Memphis Tennessee the night before he was assasinated on April 4, 1968

Links:

Civil Rights Movement Veterans

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

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The Secret Well-Endowed Right.

Josh Reeves' The Secret Right Volume 1:



We hear about Trilateral Commission, Council for Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, but we hear very little about the ultra-conservative, secret, right-winged group, Council for National Policy, who has ties to the American Eugenics Movement.  This fact conflicts directly with the pro-life stance almost all the members, some of whom are listed below, claim so passionately:

Tim LaHaye who started it.
Nelson Bunker Hunt who initially financed it
Richard Melon Scaife
George W. Bush
John McCain
Sarah Palin
Rudy Giuliani
Trent Lott
Jack Abramoff
Erik Prince of Blackwater
Rush Limbaugh
Tom Delay
Mitt Romney
Michelle Bachmann
Jack Kemp
Dick Armey
Dick Cheney
Stephan Harper
Ross Perot
Pierre DuPont
Bob Jones
Mike Huckabee
Donald Rumsfeld
Mark Sanford
Steve Forbes
Tom Clancy
James Dobson
Coors Family
Pat Robertson
Ollie North
Pat Buchanan
Phylis Shlafley
Pat Boone
Jerry Falwell
Jesse Helms
Rev Sun Myung Moon who declared himself as savior, NOT Jesus Christ, yet who so many so-called Christians are financially beholden.

There are many other various interlocking groups, although often much older, fall under the umbrella of the CPN,  The Bohemian Grove is one of those groups. It's  an all male summer camp for the powerful, where decision makers, from cabinet members to captains of industry, cement bonds, and many say, make policy.  A statue of St. John of Nepomuk, who was martyred in 1393 because of his refusal to break the seal of the confessional and divulge the secrets of the queen of Bohemia to the Protestants, stands as a reminder to the oath of secrecy one must take to attend. Those who attend also sacrifice an effigy to a statue of an Owl, often thought to be representative of Moloch, but which is really symbolic of  the owl of Minerva, in order to cast away care so that members will do whatever it takes to succeed in their particular field. Past and present members include anyone and everyone in a powerful position.

Another group is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta with past and present members:

Mayer Amschel de Rothschild
Alan Dulles
Alexander Haig
Avery Dulles
Michael Bloomberg
Bush Family
Bill Clinton
Pat Buchanan
J. Edgar Hoover
Kurt Waldheim
David and Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Mandela
Rick Santorum
Gerald Ford
Ronald Reagan
Phyllis Schlafly
Erik Prince
Rupert Murdoch
Rudy Giuliani
William Casey
William F. Buckley
William Randolph Hurst
Frank Sinatra
Clay Shaw
Tony Blair
John Bolton
Michael Chertoff
H.L. Hunt
Oliver North
Rev Sun Myung Moon who declared himself as savior, NOT Jesus Christ, yet who so many so-called Christians are financially beholden.

However, the most interesting bit of information in the documentary, The Secret Right comes from the segment on standardized IQ.  One of the highly paid researchers, J. Philippe Rushton, in Charles Murray's highly controversial book, The Bell Curve (funded $3.5 million by The Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 to study racial purity as ideal) claimed that small genitalia may be a sign of superior intelligence.  Really?  I think this falls under the category of "too much information" about researcher, and, in a nutshell, exposes the group who really lacks intelligence: the secret right.

Of course, this same book concludes that blacks are permanently set and hard-wired at a lower level of intelligence than whites and therefore welfare and job-training programs should reconsider spending money to change people who cannot be changed. This is despite evidence to the contrary where blacks scored higher than whites when they came from states with good education systems.

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Racism 2.0: Stealth, Denial and Complacency

After the election of our first black President, many white people, in particular, like to claim a new "post-Racial America". It's possible and probable, that many whites do not realize that blacks are falling behind, incarcerated, and exposed to third world conditions, at a rate so alarming, that it may be faster than at any time in the nation's history. Or, white Supremacists voted for Obama, encouraging others to do so as well. Why? To ramp up their membership. And guess what? It worked.

White racists, even more than black America may value Obama’s presidency more, as it provides a shield and a veil for continuing racism in all of its glory.

While it's true that all throughout history, white people have utilized the mechanism of denial to further a racist agenda, by refusing to recognize or acknowledge prejudice (minimizing, rationalizing, deflecting, and competing for "victimization"); now that overt racism is almost totally unacceptable, or politically incorrect, covert racism is the whole shebang. Actually, since institutional racism is already deeply embedded into our culture, reaping enormous benefits that white Americans do not even notice, our overtly racist past is unnecessary.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
20. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.
23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the place I have chosen.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.
25. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

Links:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

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Scaring White People for Fun and Profit

Rachel Maddow claims  the right-winged "professional hysteria mongers," in what she calls "anti-immigrant-scare-white-people-politics" that scares "white people for fun and profit", is not only politically expedient, it’s also increasingly easy to do."

Tea Party Nation created a new online forum where they are asking tea partiers to post stories about undocumented immigrants. In an email sent to supporters, they say:

“If [sic] have been the victim of a crime by an illegal, or if your business has gone under because your competition uses illegals, or if you have lost your job to illegals, we want to know about it… We need to get the true story out about illegal immigration and we need your help to do it.”

In addition they included, "if anyone sees undocumented immigrants acting out, like burning an American flag or hanging a Mexican flag above an American one, they also would like photos, but “acts of decency by people without papers are disqualified from this forum,” Maddow says.

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Does President Obama Have the Power to Overcome?

Source: Congressional Quarterly


There is no doubt that the Republicans - the "Party of No" (jobs, health care, democracy, justice, fair play, ect.) - are counting on President Obama to take the fall. They're banking on his failure because they know what a disaster he inherited.

White men scapegoating the 'black man'? What else is new? Even white supremacists endorsed President Obama after they saw gains in the number of visitors to their Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist web sites, not to mention an escalation in membership, since the previous senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination. These groups saw opportunity, and viewed his candidacy/presidency as a recruiting tool and a vehicle further polarize America along racial lines.

"One person put it this way: Obama for president paves the way for David Duke as president. This is finally going to make whites begin to realize it's a necessity to stick up for their own heritage, and that's going to make them turn to people like me. We're the next logical step." - David Duke

"If we need someone to take the fall because of our illicit profiteering, greed, lies, illegal unconstitutional practices, torture and corruption we put one of them in charge for awhile. Do you even think for one second we would ever let a black become president in a normal climate, hell no! This guy is going to get everything thrown at him. [...] When George W Bush leaves office, he will be hailed a hero by the American people and Republican guard. Obama will then be placed into office to take the can for 'dubya's' horrific mistakes. We don't want any part of this mess and we will allow the black guy to take the heat and be back for the 2012 election with Sarah Palin. That is if America is still around by then." John Thompson, a senior GOP representative

In other words, the timing of the Obama presidency couldn't be better as far as "white privilege" goes, and the neo-conservative's agenda to facilitate, we, the people's race to the bottom. Letting the black guy take the fall will give the neocons time to regroup and pave the way for what they hope will result in a "Palin" victory.

Nevertheless, President Obama may surprise those counting on his failure. According to a Congressional Quarterly study, Obama's Winning Streak On Hill is Unprecedented and he "did better even than legendary arm-twister Lyndon Johnson in winning congressional votes on issues where he took a position".

Although, all by itself, the results of this study do not offer a comprehensive view of Obama's "success". Aside from the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Obama's careful selection of issues, and his willingness to negotiate and to compromise, which lead to countless concessions, this study also fails to illuminate the substance of these "successes" and how closely they align with his goals and what he promised to achieve.

Having said that, there is no doubt President Obama has a strategy, and part of his plan of action may be that he wanted to demonstrate his bipartisanship, and that he's capable of getting things done. Now, that he's achieved this, maybe we'll start to see him take on a more aggressive agenda and facilitate real change.

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The Business of Us All.

Emmett Till in 1952, three years before he was brutally murdered:

"Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong. I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all." -- Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till

Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till (pictured above) - the 14-year-old black Chicago boy visiting Mississippi in 1955, who was kidnapped from his uncle's home in the town of Money and killed after he whistled at a white woman - insisted on leaving her murdered son's casket open for the funeral. Emmett was beaten so badly that his brain had to be removed prior to his burial...so badly that his mother only recognized the mutilated corpse of her son by the shape of his ears. She was quoted as saying, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.”

"The Hurricane Katrina disaster, like the Emmett Till affair, revealed a vulnerable and destitute segment of the nation's citizenry that conservatives not only refused to see but had spent the better part of the past two decades demonizing." -- Henry Giroux, author of Stormy Weather: Katrina and the Politics of Disposability.

Emmett Till's casket donated to the Smithsonian

Plans are in the works to exhibit the casket that once held the body of lynching victim Emmett Till at the Smithsonian Institution's ...

Hurricane Katrina and the Aftermath of Apathy

PBS: The Murder of Emmett Till

The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi

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