That Pesky and Totally Unnecessary Bill Of Rights

The Australians are apparently very happy with the idea that the government can tell them what rights they have and don't have. A nice example of what it's like to live under such a regime:

For months now, the French-language twittersphere has lit up with a rash of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic tweets using the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew), #SiMonFilsEstGay (if my son is gay), and #SiMaFilleRamèneUnNoir (if my daughter brings home a black guy).

Last fall, under pressure from French advocacy group Union of Jewish Students (UEJF), Twitter agreed to remove some offensive tweets. In October 2012, at Berlin’s request, Twitter also suspended a German neo-Nazi account based in the city of Hanover, the first time the company had responded to such a government request.

Speech you don't care for? Get the government to make it illegal and jail the speakers. After all WHO wouldn't want racists to be silenced and punished?

On Thursday, the Grand Instance Court in Paris ordered Twitter to identify the authors of anti-semitic tweets by creating a mechanism (Google Translate) to alert French authorities to “illegal content,” on its French site “in a visible and easily-accessible [way].”

Yes. Please make it so that companies have to disclose the identity of those who "speak" material that offends someone. Please. My poor eyes and ears cannot take it. I mean really. People in France apparently feel that the people cannot even be trusted to view racist speech.

On Thursday, Sarkozy used a televised address to propose a new set of laws that criminalize the use of websites affiliated with terrorist sympathizers and hate groups. "From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished," he said.

I have regularly visited websites deemed racist, sexist, homophobic (whatever that is) because:

a) I want to.
b) I'm interested in what the latest commentary is.
c) I sometimes get a kick out of how dumb the people are.
d) I sometimes am surprised at how well thought out and factually supported the comments are. You never know. Really.

Why should I be restricted from visiting a site 'habitually" if I want to? Who exactly is harmed by that?

I guess having the government randomly decide what speech is legal and what you may or may not observe with your own eyes is far better than having a pesky Bill of Rights.

A (Brief) People’s History of Gun Control

A good, brief primer on how "gun control" has really been about population control.

Under the slaveocracy of the American south, firearm ownership was prohibited by Black Codes that regulated free blacks. And after Emancipation, whenever the old landed gentry managed to successfully assert its power against the Reconstruction regime, former slaves were disarmed by house-to-house patrols, either under the Black Codes or by such irregular bodies as the Klan...

Speaking of the Black Panthers, no discussion of the origins of modern American gun control would be complete without recognizing their role in inspiring the modern right-wing gun control agenda. Foreshadowing current groups like Copwatch and Cop Block, the Panthers in 1966 organized armed patrols of Oakland streets with rifles and shotguns, stopping to witness police interactions with local residents and provide information and offers of legal assistance when necessary.

Today's Idiot

Binoy Kampmark has a piece that appears in Counterpunch in which he states the following:

embers of Congress shirk their obligations to protect the public in the name of constitutional freedoms and local legislatures look the other way.

I would forgive Binoy if his piece wasn't given such a high profile spot in a "left" website, but perhaps it should be noted that the members of Congress's actual job, as stated in Article VI, paragraph 2 of the US Constitution is as follows:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

You will note that nowhere does it state that their job is to "protect the public". Nor is a representative who observes their oath to uphold the constitution "shirking" their obligations.

But this idiot is from Melbourne. We already know how Australians feel about the "Bill of Rights".

The Institutionalization of Tyranny

This weekend I wrote that Americans are undeserving of their "freedoms" due to the apparent approval of various actions taken without much opposition. Apparently Paul Craig Roberts is of a similar mind:

It turns one’s stomach to listen to conservatives bemoan the destruction of liberty by compassion while they institutionalize torture, indefinite detention in violation of habeas corpus, murder of citizens on suspicion and unproven accusation alone, complete and total violation of privacy, interference with the right to travel by unaccountable “no-fly” lists and highway check points, the brutalization of citizens and those exercising their right to protest by police, frame-ups of critics, and narrow the bounds of free speech.

And understand that even though so-called "liberals" have issues with this, they, particularly the black ones, have remained quite silent on these issues particularly as it regards the Federal government for no other reason than the ancestry of the holder of the office of president.

Mr. Roberts also speaks upon the issue of Bradley Manning:

And now the judge, Col. Denise Lind, who comes across as a member of the prosecution rather than an impartial judge, has ruled that Manning cannot use as evidence the government’s own reports that the leaked information did not harm national security. Lind has also thrown out the legal principle of mens rea by ruling that Manning’s motive for leaking information about US war crimes cannot be presented as evidence in his trial.

Mens rea says that a crime requires criminal intent. By discarding this legal principle, Lind has prevented Manning from showing that his motive was to do his duty under the military code and reveal evidence of war crimes. This allows prosecutors to turn a dutiful act into the crime of aiding the enemy by revealing classified information.

Couple the ability of removing "intent" from a crime, with the idea that certain speech and thought is "criminal" and you have a recipe for certain judicial disaster.

Control

Driving to Miami, I was struck by a couple of differences between the northeastern states and the southern ones:

1) Readily available fireworks. You can't possess these in NY, for your own protection of course. In Florida certain types are not legal but not the wholesale ban.

2) Soft Drinks larger than 16 oz. Not that I approve of it, but my personal eating habits should not be foisted on anyone else. If it costs more to care for the obese, then charge them more for service.

3) Higher speed limits. Clearly speed does not kill. Speed limits in some places are 20-25 MPH faster than the top speed limit in NY. In NY however, you get a steep ticket, points on your license, insurance goodies and possible jail time.

4) Guns for sale (of course). The second amendment is alive and well in these red states.

Of course there are significant problems with these red states (southern). Pockets of pretty steep poverty (completely unrelated to the above) and the overt racism.

But I'm going to be honest, I was less worried about the police while out of the northeast than I am in the northeast, I finally felt I could drive in peace at a decent clip. That was quite a feeling of freedom.

One notable exception: Virginia. Signs threatening jail for moving violations is simply oppressive. Seriously. I don't know what the law makers on VA are smoking but to think that it's a good idea to have signs all along the interstate(s) threatening people with jail is just over the top.

5-Year-Old Suspended, Labeled a ‘Terrorist Threat’

As I was saying about the general emotional instability of Americans:

A 5-year-old girl from Pennsylvania has been suspended after telling a friend she was going to shoot her with a pink toy gun that spits out bubbles, the Associated Press reports.

The kindergartener was waiting for the bus at the time, and did not have the fake gun with her.

PennLive.com has all the unbelievable details:

Elementary school officials learned of the conversation and questioned the girls the next day, Fickler said. He said the girl did not have a parent present during the 30 minutes of questioning.

The result, he said, was that the student was labeled a “terrorist threat” and suspended for 10 days, Ficker said. The school also required her to be evaluated by a psychologist, [attorney Robin Ficker] said.

“This little girl is the least terroristic person in Pennsylvania,” he said. [Emphasis added]

The family’s attorney helped reduce the punishment from ten days to two, but the school is keeping the incident on the girl’s record. It has apparently been modified, however, to say she intended to harm another student.

Ficker told The Daily Item that school employees have become “hysterical” since the tragedy at Sandy Hook, and while we need to address genuine issues, there’s certainly a line to be drawn.

Really folks? Really?

Unhinged?

WASHINGTON — As the uprising closed in around him, the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi warned that if he fell, chaos and holy war would overtake North Africa. “Bin Laden’s people would come to impose ransoms by land and sea,” he told reporters. “We will go back to the time of Redbeard, of pirates, of Ottomans imposing ransoms on boats.”

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2009. His warnings before his 2011 ouster and death sounded melodramatic, but proved prescient as the area has become easier for jihadists to operate in. In recent days, that unhinged prophecy has acquired a grim new currency. In Mali, French paratroopers arrived this month to battle an advancing force of jihadi fighters who already control an area twice the size of Germany.

If one makes a prediction, no matter how far fetched and it comes true, how can you call it "unhinged"? This is rank White Supremacy at work. The necessity of vilifying African leadership that does not "play ball" is clearly at work.

Americans Don't Deserve their "Freedoms"

The Newton school shooting and the recent flu outbreak has only underscored a position I have come to: Americans don't deserve their so called "freedoms".

I recall sometime back during George Bush's presidency reading a comment that A majority of polled Americans (meaning a majority of the 500 -1000 people called at random) felt that that Americans have "too many rights". I was pretty shocked to read that but there it was in black and white. It was probably close to the time that the NSA warrantless wiretapping came to public attention. People's attitude was "if you're not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about."

I'm pretty certain that revolutionary America did not hold such views. I'm pretty certain the the English had such an attitude towards the colonists. After all who needs Habeus Corpus? Who needs "probable cause"? Who needs the state to have the burden of proof? After all if you are "innocent" and done nothing "wrong" then the state wouldn't have an interest in you. Right?

What has apparently been lost on a good number of American citizens is the fact that the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, is intended to curtail the power of government and to enshrine that the power of government comes from the people rather than the other way around that exists on other countries like Australia.

So taking the Australia example where Johnny boy lauds the power of the legislature to determine what freedoms and rights the people have, The US system is one where the people are presumed to have the right to something until they via their direct vote or via their representatives decide to give that particular right up.

In the case of the Second Amendment it is (and has been) the case that the citizen has the fundamental right to have a firearm (or firearms). There is and never was an intent to have citizens "defend" or "explain" why they have a particular firearm. They have a right to have it. Period.

Now the same citizen has private property rights. He or she can state that on their particular private property they do not allow persons to carry a weapon. However; that same citizen has no rights to tell another citizen whether they can possess a firearm off their private property. If you look at much of the commentary surrounding gun control in the US, the latter argument is exactly what has been made. People are saying that since they don't "feel comfortable" with guns, no one should be allowed to possess one. It is an entirely "un-American" argument.

The point of this post is not to simply focus on gun safety, but the overall trend in America becoming "less free".

Exhibit 1:Bradley Manning denied chance to make whistleblower defence

he judge presiding over Manning's prosecution by the US government for allegedly transmitting confidential material to WikiLeaks ruled in a pre-trial hearing that Manning will largely be barred from presenting evidence about his motives in leaking the documents and videos. In an earlier hearing, Manning's lead defence lawyer, David Coombs, had argued that his motive was key to proving that he had no intention to harm US interests or to pass information to the enemy.

This has become a common theme in the US justice system. Judges deciding that a defendant cannot make a particular defense. Why is the state dictating what the accused (and presumed innocent) person's defense can or cannot be? The jury (or judge) is supposed to weigh the evidence, not determine what a defendant can say in their defense. If a defendant makes an absurd or weak defense that is his or her business. The "ridiculousness" of the argument will be seen at trial and will no doubt aide in their conviction.

In terms of Bradley Manning, whistleblowing is an action entirely dependent on intent. The primary difference between being a "spy"(illegal) and someone who is exposing potentially or actual illegal activity by the government (legal) is "intent". Essentially by pre-empting Private Manning's only real means of defense the Judge has already determined the outcome of the trial.

Whether one agrees with Private Manning's actions or not, one should be disturbed by the actions of the government in regards to his handling and prosecution.

Exhibit 2: Mandatory flu shots opposed by some health care workers

Out more than 1,000 workers filed a petition to oppose the directive. The episode highlights strains that have developed in the midst of one of the strongest flu seasons in years. Though the government recommends that health care facilities increase the number of workers who get vaccinated, nurses and other workers in some communities have put their jobs on the line by saying no. Their argument: They have medical or religious reasons or doubt the effectiveness of the vaccine. The employers' response: They have a responsibility to protect the health of patients and co-workers who need to stay healthy.

If Rhode Island health care workers skip the vaccine, they are required to wear a surgical mask on the job.

The American Nurses Association and National Nurses United, which represent about 300,000 of the nation's nurses, have not tracked how many workers have been suspended or fired for refusing to get a shot. Both groups recommend the vaccination, but say it shouldn't be mandated and workers shouldn't be fired.

Let's get something clear here. Take New York as an example. There have been a reported 20k cases of flu in NY with 20 deaths as of this writing. There are 8 million people in the NYC metro area. That means the infected are one quarter of 1 percent of the total population.

Unlike the vaccines for Measles and Diptheria and the like which are nearly 100% effective, the flu "vaccine" is only 60% effective. Also unlike those vaccines, the flu "vaccine" must be taken every single year. Why? Because the Influenza virus, like the Rhino virus (responsible for the common cold) is constantly mutating with various new strains appearing every year.

Now take into account that we've seen that the odds of getting the flu in NYC is effectively .25% and that the Flu vaccine is effective only 60% of the time means that with a vaccine you have a .15% chance of getting the Flu. Yet we are firing people from their jobs over these kinds of statistics?

Even worse, it would seem to me that IF mask wearing is effective in preventing flu transmission and since the flu "vaccine" does not prevent catching or transmitting the Influenza virus, that medical facilities should require all staff, "vaccinated" or not, to wear masks if the actual concern was "patient safety".

Seriously. Think about it. These health care facilities claim to have the patient health as their primary concern and their choice is to force people to take a shot that is LESS effective than a mask?

Look, do you think these vaccines are being made for free? Do you?

Again, rather than assert the rights of a person over their bodies (as Roe V Wade did), people are getting fired. Even with a clearly more effective alternative. Worse, the state is getting involved by trying to legally mandate shots. One should not need a "religious" argument to refuse a less than 99% effective "vaccine". Particularly one that is not "one and done".

So long as the "safety argument" can be made anything can be legislated.

Exhibit 3: NRA: We didn't get a chance to oppose N.Y. law

Cuomo and legislative leaders negotiated the bill's language behind closed doors, a regular occurrence in Albany. The bill was introduced on Monday evening, passed the Senate on Monday night and approved by the Assembly on Tuesday. Cuomo, who issued a special waiver to avoid the usual three-day window for lawmakers and the public to review bills, signed it into law late Tuesday afternoon.

Whether one agrees with gun control or not, one should be bothered by the fact that legislation, any of it, is done backroom, rushed through the legislative body and waivers created to bypass public input.

And apparently this is "business as usual" for Albany. Looks a lot like the documentary I saw on Hilter and how he ran things. Hitler thought an idea was good. He wrote it, folks knew to "get behind it or else". The public...well the public didn't have a say did they?

You'll note that one of the primary reasons for the rush was to "thwart" the citizens of NY State (the vast majority of whom are and have been completely law abiding) from "stocking up". A blatant disregard for their fundamental rights. All this did was show that the gun people on the far right who were talking about the left's wish to "take away their guns" were absolutely, 100% correct.

Exhibit 4: Aurora Theater's Reopening Sparks Mixed Emotions This is not a clear "rights" issue, but about the total emotionally unstable the population seems to be becoming. The inability to face risk, to face obstacles, people who don't like them, etc. Everybody owes somebody something because of how they "feel".

The Aurora, Colo., theater where 12 people were killed in a mass shooting last summer reopens Thursday, with a private event for victims' families and first responders. But some families are giving the event a pass, arguing that the decision to reopen is insensitive. Jessica Watts lives just a few miles from the theater where her cousin, Jonathan Blunk, and 11 others were killed and dozens more wounded. "Basically, any time I want to go shopping, yes, I have to see that theater," Watts says. "I drive by it numerous times a week. And it's one of those very sad hard realizations that there's 12 people that are no longer here." Watts says the Cinemark, which owns the theater, should move the venue elsewhere and turn the existing site into a memorial.

"Insensitive"? This is like the calls to demolish the Newton school. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The only thing we are teaching the children is how to avoid things that make them uncomfortable. To not face fears. Avoidance, avoidance, avoidance.

It is clear that various interest groups all over the political spectrum are using fear tactics to get the things that they want. They are willing to demonize the "opposition", sometimes using coded language like "common sense" (AKA: Only someone stupid would disagree.). I think it would be most fruitful for folks to look at why the US has a limited government and why that is actually beneficial. Freedom comes with responsibility and risk. Deal with it.

Aussie Says

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, the old English penal colony, decided to throw his 2 pence into the gun debate in the US. You'd think a head of state would have the sense to not comment about the internal affairs of another state but hey, everybody and their momma is talking about what they think should happen so why shouldn't he?

I have a problem with John Howard tooting his horn for what should be some obvious reasons. Let's begin with this:

IT is for Americans and their elected representatives to determine the right response to President Obama’s proposals on gun control. I wouldn’t presume to lecture Americans on the subject.

Oh, he shouldn't lecture Americans on what they should do but he's going to go and do so anyway. Well why even bother with that opener?

Then there was the following which should have caused the editors of the NY times to say "no thanks, post this in one of your country's newpapers and maybe we'll link to it:

Australia, correctly in my view, does not have a Bill of Rights, so our legislatures have more say than America’s over many issues of individual rights, and our courts have less control. Also, we have no constitutional right to bear arms. (After all, the British granted us nationhood peacefully; the United States had to fight for it.)

Excuse me? Did I read that right. Your country has no Bill of Rights (AKA supposed guaranteed freedoms that the government cannot take away? And you think that it's better?

Then what the fuck are you doing posting in an American paper?

Seriously, After saying how he shouldn't presume to lecture Americans, this idiot goes on to trash the fundamental document of the nation? The fuck is wrong with him?

This guy actually believes that citizens should not have a "guaranteed" right to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press and self-defense with arms? He thinks it's better to not have a guarantee of a trial jury by peers? With a government that must prove guilt rather than a citizen having to prove to the state that he or she is innocent? That the state cannot up and grab your property on it's own whim? That the state cannot deprive you of your freedom or property without due process and probable cause?

This dick thinks that not having these things enshrined in the sovereign law of the land is Better?

One does not have to support the NRA to call this bullocks for what it is. One does not have to oppose "gun control" to see thus steaming pile for what it is.

John states the obvious: If there are no guns there can be no gun crimes. In the US unless the second amendment is repealed, there will be guns in America. Along with that will be the rights of citizens to own guns (some more lethal than others). And there will be gun crime.

One either accepts that the price of a free country with a right to own guns is gun violence (along with all the other types) or you decrease the freedom. Those are the only options here.

The same logic applies to freedom of speech. Some people will use that freedom to say really vile things. We cannot and should not preempt such speech unless we wish to be less free to speak. This is why I object most strenuously to "hate speech" legislation and the like. The state should simply NOT be in the business of regulating speech other than that which poses an immediate danger to life or that is libel or slander (under civil laws).

So Johnny boy should go back under the rock he crawled out from under with his nonsense about it's better to not have a Bill of Rights. '

"The Perfect Man"

Only in a White Supremacist society can a "news" program announce that the "perfect [single] man" is a white man and nobody even has a funny look on their face. We're looking at you GMA.

"Not In Our Homes"

So reading this article on VP Biden's gun control initiative I was struck by two things. The first was a piece in the article:

But a coalition of liberal organizations on Wednesday sent a letter to Walmart’s chief executive asking the company to stop selling assault weapons.

“Assault weapons of all brands and models continue to adorn your shelves, from Sig Sauer M400s to Colt LE6920s,” the letter says. “We know the horrific capacity of these weapons to wreak havoc on our communities because we have witnessed it firsthand. They have no place in our streets and in our homes, and we strongly insist that you honor your 2004 pledge to ensure they have no place in your stores either.”

Perhaps it's just me but I have a problem with an "advocacy group" speaking on what does or does not have a "place in our homes".

If this group of people do not want to have a gun or any other weapon "in their homes" then they are free to not have a gun or any other weapon "in their homes". This is that nanny state bullshit that "the left" is increasingly fond of.

While this particular letter may be directed at a private corporation, one would be a fool to think that this particular sentiment, that they can and should determine what you have in your home or person is what they are attempting to use the power of the government for.

The second item that caught my attention was one of the comments. Alan M of California posted:

Fear of government tyranny against our citizens is the real smoking gun in the debate over gun control. Die-hard defenders of the 2nd Amendment believe that assault weapons are necessary not for hunters and sportsmen but to keep us safe from a government bound on taking away our individual liberties, starting with our guns. This is a form of paranoia and conspiracy mongering that only serves the interests of the gun industry. How ridiculous to think that armed citizens could possibly stand up to the arsenal of modern weapons under government control. Is the answer even more sophisticated citizen weaponry to keep federal government in check? Absurd.

Paranoia and conspiracy mongering.

Ruby Ridge is not "paranoia" or "conspiracy mongering". Nor was the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas. Both, particularly Ruby Ridge are examples of what happens when the state decides to use it's monopoly of force against citizens it "has a problem with." Occupy Wall Street also got a taste of that when unarmed and non-violent protestors got "the treatment" from the NYPD. I won't even get into what happens at various G8 meetings.

Some of you may be surprised that I a black man would point to Ruby Ridge because of the White Supremacist beliefs of the Weavers. That fact should not distract one from understanding how that incident is a prime example of why the government and it's agents are bent on disarming the civilian population. Anyone who is familiar with the history founding the nation knows that the right to bear arms was as much about "a speedy militia" as it was about being a check against government abuse. This was also well known by the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. One should note that many gun restrictions, particularly in California were in direct response to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense policing the police.

It is now these disarmed and pacified civilian population that accepts "free speech zones" and being arrested for protesting outside of the presidential conventions of various parties and the like. Where "no knock" Warrants can be issued and police can run up into your home without announcing themselves because the occupant may be armed and dangerous.

It is the acceptance of this reality which causes the quoted commentator to accept the idea that the government ought to be and is 'rightfully" so well armed that the citizenship has no other choice but to submit to it and accept whatever pittance of "rights" that the government allows.

The Creeping Obsolescence of Labor

There seems to be an erroneous consensus on the Left that offshoring/outsourcing explains this phenomenon. About a third of all manufacturing work, some 6 million jobs, has been lost since 2000. But the exporting of jobs fails to explain most of this. “[W]hile many of these jobs were lost to competition with low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven machinery that can do the work of 10, or in some cases, 100 workers.” (Adam Davidson, “Skills Don’t Pay the Bills”, The New York Times, Nov. 20, 2012) This is permanent job loss, and contributes to the inequality endemic to labor-market polarization: “Those jobs are not coming back, but many believe that the industry’s future (and, to some extent, the future of the American economy) lies in training a new generation for highly skilled manufacturing jobs – the ones that require people who know how to run the computer that runs the machine.”

A great read. I will also point the reader to my discussion of the movie I, Robot.

Specifically I was struck by the displacement of humans in many jobs. I, robot takes place in 2035, when yours truly will be in his 60's. at that time it appears that robots are rubbish collectors, babysitters, cooks, janitors even bartenders. My question was, what happened to the people who usually do these jobs?

"No One Should Represent The Accused."

A New Delhi court put a blanket ban on reporting the trial of the Delhi gang rape case on Monday, responding to a chaotic courtroom packed with news media and a large number of female lawyers who say no one should represent the accused...

The 13,000-member Saket Bar Association, which represents lawyers where the trial is being held, have vowed not to represent the accused, because of the nature of the crime....

Dozens of female lawyers appeared in the New Delhi court on Monday, many of them vocally objecting to the accused’s right to representation. They scuffled with several lawyers who volunteered to represent the accused.

Shockingly, well not so, that persons who understand how false accusations and the effects of insular societies effect the rights and privileges of women, would stoop to saying that those accused of a crime, any crime, ought not be given council.

And don't think for a minute that this is some aberration. There are many women in "The West" who are of the opinion that the mere charge of rape warrants an instant guilty finding by "law enforcement". And these women of "The West" have probably influenced these "lawyers" calling for "non representation" of the accused.

Here's how it works ladies. Representation for the accused does not equal supporting the accused. The point of representation for the accused of any crime is to ensure that the state does not abuse it's power against citizens. Once one sets the precedence that a citizen can be stripped of representation due to the nature of a crime, then all citizens are in danger of having their right to representation stripped.

Of Black Men and White Middle-Class Feminists

Ishmael Reed has annoyed me with his defense of the Obama administration on some "gotta protect the black guy in office" tip. However; he continues to be on point on other matters. Read this new piece and the following stuck out at me:

Here’s a fact that you’ll never hear from Amy Goodman, Eve Ensler and Terry Gross. Among all American males, Black men are the ones who are most likely to be murdered by women. I cite Natalie J. Sokoloff, and Christina Pratt’s 2005 book, Family & Relationships –where the authors wrote: “Black women are also more likely than their White counterparts to inflict lethal violence against their husbands.” So what do you suppose black men were doing, while, during the Katrina calamity, the women were swimming upstream? In Las Vegas partying with Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson?

This is in line with the research I have done which has exposed (to me at least) that the regular line(s) in regards to domestic violence are greatly distorted.

The FBI Treated Occupy Like a Terrorist Group

In reference to the Newtown kilings I wrote, in defense of the second amendment, including the rights of citizens to own "assault weapons", that I do not trust the government. I pointed out that if one needed any more proof that the citizenry should not simply "trust" the government with the exclusive ownership and use of firearms, one should look no further than the various "occupy" protests (I won't even get into what happens outside the US).

As if to bolster my argument, the universe dropped this gem right in my lap last night:

the 112 heavily redacted pages reveal that the FBI approached the Occupy Wall Street protests as "criminal activity" -- which is not terribly surprising -- and investigated the groups as perpetrators of "domestic terrorism" -- which is fairly unsettling. More specifically, the Feds enlisted its own as well as local terrorism task forces in nine different cities across the country to investigate Occupy. In Memphis, the group was lumped together with Anonymous and the Aryan Nation in discussing the threat of "domestic terrorism." White supremacists and 99 Percenters aren't really two groups that we think about hand-in-hand but whatever.

Occupy as "domestic terrorists"?

And what power has the president given himself in regards to "terrorists"?

Indefinite detention you say?

Are we getting the picture now?

Counterfeit medicine from Asia threatens lives in Africa

International health experts are warning of a mounting health crisis in parts of Africa because of an influx of counterfeit medicine from Asia that is playing havoc with the treatment of diseases such as malaria. Porous borders in Africa coupled with indifferent oversight in China are combining to turn the continent and its pressing health problems into a free-for-all for maverick manufacturers, some of whom are producing pills with no active ingredients at all.

When you depend on other people to make things for you....

The NRA Press Conference

Yesterday the NRA had a press conference where it stated it's position on the calls for further gun control laws in the wake of the Newtown killings. The presenter was rudely interrupted by Code Pink (apparently uninhibited free speech is OK only when it is people who say what one agrees with) who could have had their own press conference and said whatever they wanted. Anyway, blaming the NRA for murders is like blaming Ford Motor Co. for vehicular homicide or Heineken for drunk driving accident. But this is America where someone other than the perp is always responsible. It is always a bad sign in an argument when insults and name calling becomes a substitute for actual facts and the like. There were no shortage of this after the NRA conference as Bloomberg got into the act along with the expected "liberal" outlets. The Times with it's "NRA Crawls From Its Hidey Hole" was really below it's supposed standard for editorials but not unexpected. Every news broadcast I saw on the subject neglected to discuss what the NRA's actual position was further than "armed police at every school". So in the interest of fairness and actually wishing to see a solution let's actually examine what was actually said by the NRA (opinions as to what the membership believes in terms of race and the like are not on the table).

Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. 1 And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk. How have our nation's priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses -- even sports stadiums -- are all protected by armed security. We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers. Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!

I'll wait for anyone to offer a valid rebut to this position. It is a totally factual statement. If "guns" are the problem then ban them all. I would agree with that if you could actually 100% guarantee that nobody anywhere and at anytime could get one. Can you do that? No? right then. So you recognize that some crazy or criminal person can and will get a gun (or guns) then the statement above cannot be disputed. Let's move on.

The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters -- people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment? How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame -- from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave -- while provoking others to try to make their mark? 2 A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

Again, a totally factual statement. Nobody can dispute this statement either. I've seen commentary regarding how the mentally ill are currently treated. I think it's beyond the scope of this piece even though it is a valid issue that should be addressed. However this is the NRA not the NIH. The next thing the NRA goes into is about video games and movies:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it? 3 Then there's the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment." But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes -- every minute of every day of every month of every year.

I'm not with the analysis that watching violence makes one violence. Yes there is definitely proof that immediately after observing or participating in adrenaline pumping activities that males are more aggressive for some time after and will engage in more risky behavior. There is no dispute in that. I will certainly attest to that in my own life. However; there is no evidence that normal males are "suckered" into acts of criminal violence by playing games. I mean really...you can get shot multiple times and keep going like nothing happened? Really? I'm supposed to believe that? I get to "respawn" after being killed? Really? I can survive a RPG blast and run around shooting people? Really? Look, no rational male thinks that these games or movies are real. We know the fight scenes are choreographed and real fights do not work out like they do in Kung-Fu flicks and the like. There are only a small handful of people that "mistake" that for reality. The NRA pointed them out in the beginning.

To the point of those killers who used games such as Call of Duty to "hone their skills". Believe me, they had already decided to do the killing. Whether Call of Duty was available or not would not have made a difference. Do you really believe that killers actually sit down and say "well I can't practice on my X-Box so I'm going to call the whole thing off"?

Didn't think so.

So if anything, the NRA gets the gas face for the whole movies and video game theory it tried to walk out. Oddly none of the news reports I saw even addressed that fallacy.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away ... or a minute away?

I made a similar argument not so long ago. It's the same argument I make in regards to rape prevention. Would you rather be a statistic or have a loved one become a statistic while claiming "he shouldn't have done it" or would you rather create a situation where he "cannot" even if he wanted to? I always suggest the latter. But some people apparently would rather leave themselves defenseless against an assailant rather than have an increased ability to protect themselves.

Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: "More guns," you'll claim, "are the NRA's answer to everything!" Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.

Exactly what happened.

A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your 5 living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

So why is the idea of a gun good when it's used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it's used to protect our children in their schools?

Cannot even argue with this. Anyone who has had someone enter their home with ill intent has gone for a weapon (assuming they weren't immobilized in fear). And the NRA is absolutely right. We will defend our homes, with guns if available, but will not do the same in a place with our most "valuable" assets: Children? Yes. It is definitely a stupid double standard.

But what if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?

Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?

I made the same argument. I asked the same question. Not a single one of the newscasters, Bloomberg or Christie, even addressed this question. The NY Times attempted to address it:

In the 62 mass-murder cases over 30 years examined recently by the magazine Mother Jones, not one was stopped by an armed civilian. We have known for many years that a sheriff’s deputy was at Columbine High School in 1999 and fired at one of the two killers while 11 of their 13 victims were still alive. He missed four times.

People like Mr. LaPierre want us to believe that civilians can be trained to use lethal force with cold precision in moments of fear and crisis. That requires a willful ignorance about the facts. Police officers know that firing a weapon is a huge risk; that’s why they avoid doing it. In August, New York City police officers opened fire on a gunman outside the Empire State Building. They killed him and wounded nine bystanders.

You'll note that Mother Jones completely neglected to discuss the Pearl Miss shooting where the gunman was stopped by an assistant principle who retrieved his gun from his vehicle and confronted the gunman. Think if that person did not have to go to his vehicle in the parking lot.

Also there are obvious questions to ask about the Mother Jones research. For example in the 62 mass murder cases over 30 years how many armed civilians were in the immediate vicinity of the event? Obviously an unarmed civilian population is incapable of using a gun to stop a would be mass shooter. So that argument is dead on it's face without further investigation. As to Mr. Lanza, let us think on the hypothetical that the administrators were all armed or there was a contingent of armed personnel on that campus. Adam Lanza broke into the building by breaking the glass. Let us assume that there would have been a set of security cameras that would have alerted someone to Lanza being at the door and armed. NO sooner had Lanza made his entry then he would have been confronted by at least one armed person. Lanza is likely dead at this point. All children alive.

Say Lanza gains entry and no armed person is on the scene. The person who noticed the break in could/would have tripped an alarm that warned all persons to lock doors, etc. Then armed personnel confront Lanza, Perhaps one or two of them are shot. But Lanza is stopped. No children are killed. The NYT tries to equate the Newtown situation with the recent shooting in midtown Manhattan. Two completely different situations. But of course the entire point of the comparison is to raise fear and doubt in an already fearful and doubtful population. Anyway, back to the NRA:

Is the press and political class here in Washington so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners that you're willing to accept a world where real resistance to evil monsters is a lone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life to shield the children in her care? No one -- regardless of personal political prejudice -- has the right to impose that sacrifice.

Bulls eye. Just read that paragraph again. Let that sink in. Because ultimately that is what all the "gun control" talk is about now.

I remember that non-fiction movie "Lean On Me" where Morgan Freeman plays the no nonsense principle who walked the halls with his baseball bat. Oh how far we've fallen.

I won't get into the NRA's specific proposal in regards to volunteer and non-volunteers to guard schools. That is a matter of budget and policy beyond the abilities of the NRA. But what I think needs to be done by the public at large is to stop with the emotional, from the gut reactions to these things. Stop with the dumb politics. Until or unless every single gun in existence is destroyed, there will be someone with one.

Mexico has some of the toughest gun laws in this hemisphere. It has a huge murder problem. Guns are smuggled in via the US (so we are told). So clearly "law" is not the solution.

The oft carted out "western Europe has far less gun crime than the US" argument is nice on it's surface. It is not until you realize that western Europe has almost always had lower gun violence than America and western Europe has less violence period and that has been the case PRIOR to the current gun laws they have undercuts that argument.

If one does not like guns that's OK. Just say so and move along. Name calling and false arguments are totally unnecessary. Media outlets are fast losing credence with the public because facts are far easier to find with studies and the like easily accessible over the internet. I don't care for the Nanny State BS that the left is creating anymore than I like the wild free-for all that the right has been pushing. Being against the NRA or "The Right" does not make one's argument any more factual.

Alternet and the Handwringing Liberals

Alternet has this piece up, for pageviews I'm sure, about the 9 Horrible Gun Laws Backed by the Right Wing Because obviously one must be a "Right winger" to agree with any of the items they list. Lets look at this list:

1. Guns on Campus

Dubbed the “Campus Personal Protection Act,” this model legislation would allow handguns to be carried on campus. The ALEC bill would also “limit” regulations that the governing boards of colleges imposed on the carrying of guns on campus.

This is basically an extension of the idea that a private law abiding citizen should be able to carry a weapon anywhere he or she is legally entitled to be. I don't have a problem with that. But it is part and parcel of the "right to carry". Either you have it or you don't. I do believe that folks who wish to run up into a school and shoot at students will think hard about the possibility that they will be killed in the process. That even though being armed does not in any way guarantee that you will not be killed. It does mean that you, along with all the other armed students/persons have a chance at stopping the would be killer should you have the chance.

It's the same reason I practice martial arts. If someone gets the drop on me I'm probably dead. However; should he or she fail to incapacitate me, I am very capable of ending the conflict quickly and if I so chose mortally.

But hey, If you want to cower in a corner or under a desk hoping that dude with the gun doesn't find you or the police get to campus and the building in time. PLease by all means, don't carry.

2. Immediate Firearm Purchases

Yeah I totally oppose this item. If you have no intent to use the gun for a crime, you can wait.

3. More ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws

I agree with "Stand Your Ground" laws. Again, I see no reason why a law abiding citizen should be prosecuted for protecting him or herself from someone who is breaking the law and threatening their life. I actually don't even think there should be a need for such laws because it should be understood that one has the right to defend oneself to the point of mortally wounding an assailant.

With the rise of surveillance in America, it is now quite possible that in the near future just about every public altercation in America will be recorded and it can be found out who initiated a conflict without the he said she said and other forensics.

Don't let the use of Trayvon as a proper example of Stand Your Ground. Zimmerman was without reason to exit his vehicle while armed and run up on Trayvon who was legally at the location and committing no crime. Just because someone claims "stand your ground" doesn't mean it is "Stand Your Ground".

4. No Borders to Firearm Movement

This ALEC bill would, if passed, require states to recognize “concealed carry” permits or licenses from other states. This would mean that the state where guns are being carried in would have no recourse to go after people with guns if they have a permit and came from a state that allows “concealed carry” permits.

I agree with this one too. It makes no sense that you have to apply for a permit in each state you enter. No sense at all. Your driver's license isn't only for one state and your vehicle is a weapon. The technical term, at least in New Jersey is reciprocity. The state recognizes the "privilege" of driving as granted by any other state (or country)so long as you meet the requirements of being licensed and insured. Clearly it would be prohibitive for both citizens and the state to have to obtain special permits for each and every state one drove into. It's not like the specifics of how to drive changes when one crosses a state line.

So exactly how does one explain how the operation of a firearm or the background check to get one or the permit that one possess to carry change once one changes states?

From what I've read, these state laws have managed to save us from the menace of Hip Hop artists and basketball players who shoot themselves. Furthermore, last I checked all of these mass shooters lived in the state where they purchased/ obtained the gun used.

And to bring us back to the point. Law abiding citizens are not the problem and these laws only serve to make their lives more difficult.

I'm going to skip to number seven:

7. Guns for Emergencies This ALEC-backed legislation would prohibit states from confiscating firearms in the wake of a declared “state of emergency.” The group claims such a law would run afoul of the Second Amendment. It also calls for public employees who confiscate firearms to be found “guilty of the crime of larceny of a firearm or ammunition,” if such a law were on the books.

I am TOTALLY against the state being able to disarm the citizens upon declaring a "state of emergency". I simply do not trust the state enough to be cool with that. If you are so clueless as to not understand why I would suggest you look back on the Occupy protests. Regardless of your position on them the violence was one way and sometime brutal. You trust the state if you want to. The founding fathers put in the second amendment specifically because they did not trust government. The British went and proved them right on that one.

See some of the ideas aren't actually bad and some are actually in line with the better founding principles of the country. No need to simply say everything one disagrees with is "right wing claptrap". Sometimes people have not only a different perspective than you do, but also a different set of fears.

The NY Times on it's Errors in Reporting

One of the various reasons I have left Twitter and Facebook:

“In the Twitter age, the pressure is worse than ever to be fast — it’s become more difficult,” he said. “Some of the pressure is coming from readers. If they see a headline on a Web site, they start looking for a complete and fully reported story from us, and they protest if they don’t find it.”

NY Times I will probably write more about my vacancy of Twitter and Facebook over on my other blog but this one point is one of the things that maddened me about Twitter. People are free to say all kinds of flat out wrong things in a public setting with no repercussions at all. Worse they can flat out deny factual information with little more than snark because "it's my stream and I post what I want". Twitter can be useful...I get curated tweets on topics I'm interested in via FlipBoard minus the useless chatter thank you very much.

Sandy Hook Gun Violence: Sober Analysis

Amid all the tears and concern (and ratings boosts) that the Sandy Hook killing spree has unleashed on the public, I have seen very little in the way of cold hard analysis on the facts surrounding the case. I have a theory about that but I won't go into it here. What I will do is repeat what I've said many many times: This is not a "gun" issue. It is a person issue.

On the recent airing of This Week one of the commentators pointed out that the young man in this case went for the automatic weapons and not the hunting rifles. This, according to him, was proof that the issue is the gun. No one bothered to ask this fellow whether in the absence of said automatic weapons would the shooter have decided to settle on the hunting gun.

It's an obvious question, but was never asked. The reason is clear, there is a call from certain segments of the society to have a ban on assault weapons. I'm not going to go into whether that is a good or bad idea. What is important is that when folks are so focused on their pet concern, they fail to think through on the actual subject at hand.

I remind people that guns have not killed a single person. Not a one. Every person who has been shot has either had someone point a gun at them and pull the trigger, been hit by a stray bullet fired by a person. Shot themselves or dropped a gun they were handling or someone else was handling.

See the pattern emerging here? Guns are inanimate objects. They can do nothing without the person. Therefore the problem is not the gun but the person.

I've been reading Better Angels of Our Nature which makes it pretty clear that America, of all the "Western" countries is the most violent. Let's examine this piece from the BBC from back in 2001:

Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept. The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

A "deep" gun culture. one third of the population has arms and there was a gun crime rate so low there weren't statistics kept.

Few restrictions In addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons. Some cantons restrict the carrying of firearms - others do not. The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the general public when new equipment is introduced. Guns and shooting are popular national pastimes. More than 200,000 Swiss attend national annual marksmanship competitions.

Wait. The government sells weapons to the public? There are few restrictions on buying weapons? I thought the "problem" was availability. According to every talking head on TV for the past couple of days, the entire problem is the availability of guns. If this theory is so iron clad why does Switzerland have such a low violent crime rate?

Despite the lack of rigid gun laws, firearms are strictly connected to a sense of collective responsibility.

[Note: Switzerland did pass a referendum requiring citizens to keep ammunition at "approved government facilities" after a successful push by "lefist" groups. The original plan was to strip all guns from citizens]

Ahhh... This takes us back to the entire reason for the original second amendment to the US Constitution. Gun ownership and use was largely an expected thing of men (and some women) at the time of the Constitution's creation. It's not as if gun violence was unknown to the founders. Gun violence, knife violence, etc. was well known and an accepted risk and danger of a free society. That was in addition to the fact that any citizen could up and form or join a militia for the purposes of defense (or for us black folks...lynch mobs). Therefore it is clear that the problem of "gun violence" in America is American culture. Better put and amply demonstrated in Better Angels of Our Nature (and elsewhere) the "cultures" in America. A recent study by Harvard professors Don Kates and Gary Mause shows the following:

Between 1998‐2004 (the lat‐ est figure available for Russia), Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and various other now‐independent European nations of the former U.S.S.R....

Table 1 shows many other developed nations (e.g., Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Denmark) with high rates of gun ownership. These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many devel‐ oped nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002....

“data on fire‐ arms ownership by constabulary area in England,” like data from the United States, show “a negative correlation,”10 that is, “where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are high‐ est.”11 Many different data sets from various kinds of sources are summarized as follows by the leading text: [T]here is no consistent significant positive association be‐ tween gun ownership levels and violence rates: across (1) time within the United States, (2) U.S. cities, (3) counties within Illinois, (4) country‐sized areas like England, U.S. states, (5) regions of the United States, (6) nations, or (7) population subgroups . . . .12

So let us dispense with the popular position that it is the guns and gun ownership that is the driver to gun violence. There is one point that is entirely true that needs to be admitted though. Guns do allow people who are too chicken shit to attack and kill someone with their bare hands the ability to kill with minimal risk to themselves. Suicide killers do not fall into that category. They know they will be caught and that they likely will be killed during or after their spree. Which brings me to the next point.

Another commentator in This Week pointed out that he owns a gun and has a conceal carry permit. We must understand that this recent shooter used a legally procured gun. This was not a case of an illegal gun (which Bloomberg will likely not mention). This underscores the fact that one does not know who will commit a crime. We do not know whether tomorrow, this individual on This Week will flip out because he caught his wife or girlfriend with another man and decide to shoot up her family. There is no knowing who will flip out or when. We only know that someone will flip out at some point in the future.

So we could have an assault weapons ban. Surely those who simply collect would have to go without even though most of them pose no threat to anyone. The criminals in gangs who want assault rifles will get them and use them. Suicide killers with enough patience will procure one regardless of legality and potential for punishment because they don't plan on sticking around.

Lastly allow me to ask one question that I haven't even heard asked: What if the administrators in that building were armed? How far could he have gotten if like the Swiss, every person in that building was qualified to shoot and owned a gun and had one concealed? Surely less lives would have been lost had one of the many teachers and administrators had a gun and had shot back (or at) the shooter. Why are "we" the public OK with being collectively helpless when one of those unstable people show up?

Man with knife injures 22 kids at school in China

In light of today's shooting in Connecticut and the expected "gun control talk"

A knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes Friday, police said, the latest in a series of periodic rampage attacks at Chinese schools and kindergartens. The attack in the Henan province village of Chengping happened shortly before 8 a.m., said a police officer from Guangshan county, where the village is located. The attacker, 36-year-old villager Min Yingjun, is now in police custody, said the officer, who declined to give her name, as is customary among Chinese civil servants.

As I've said many, many times: it's not the gun it's the person.

Should Read "First [known] Biracial President"

Freedom Rider: Susan Rice and American Evil

In the latest Black Agenda Report we find a great comment that I'd like to share:

Walter Rodney was a Black intellectual and the author of a classic book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1942, he was the victim of a political assassination there in 1980....

But earlier in the book Rodney said something that turned out to be so incorrect that it is difficult to believe:

"Can the American state simply bring its armed forces to bear on the African continent without causing an explosion of the already developing anti-imperialist sentiments of the black people of this country? Can they get away with it by playing up racism and hoping to have the white sector of the population going with them? My feeling is that it is going to be extremely difficult, for it becomes more difficult as time goes on for the U.S. to manipulate. Cambodia and Laos were places that seemed rather far away and, as Lt. Calley said at one time, there weren't people there, only communists, things that you could kill. But now communists are assuming this human form and they are coming closer and closer to home. They have defeated imperialism in one area. When it crops up in Africa, I think the first major stumbling block will be the black population in this country. I don't care whether there are black congressmen, or whether there are black mayors, or whether they're supposed to be conservative or not. I really cannot see any black person in this country with any viability outside of a mental institution who could actually support the United States sending troops to intervene in Africa. And that is going to be a major contradiction. I know they won't come out and say that. And if there is some black mayor or congressman going into South Africa, I believe he would put his life in physical jeopardy from some other brothers around. I don't think it's a simple task at all for the U.S. to just go and jump into Africa."

This point is so dead on. In the past 4 years I have been utterly shocked and amazed by the change in attitudes from a number of persons I thought were on principle opposed to imperialism. No sooner had Obama got into office did these persons fall silent to actions that would have had them writing multivolume works. It was indeed disheartening. I won't even get into the folks who prior to Obama had nothing to say on anything remotely political who suddenly "found their voice" and weren't shy about expounding on the politics of the day as if they have decades of experience and study behind them.

But this fatally wrong belief about what black people will or will not do is something that many of us with an interest in the future of black folk need to keep in mind. Don't put anything off the table when it comes to people under a racist system. It has always been the case that those under oppression will spawn a majority population that will ape their oppressors in order to move up economically, socially and politically. It was the 2 "brothers" that put the bullets into Malcolm's body. No matter their issues with Malcolm they knew full well that he was acting in their general long term interest. But their short term personal wants overrode their sense of justice and decency. It's far easier to do and doesn't require doing anything illegal.

Anyway. Good point by Mark E. Smith

Ebony Looks to Its Past as It Moves Forward

I still miss Emerge though. I wasn't aware that the magazine had both a female CEO and Chair of the board. It explains much of the editorials I have seen on Ebony.com. I would be interested in the reader demographics.

We Cannot Make These Things Up

From the NY Times:

The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists...Money flows to the group, the Nusra Front, from like-minded donors abroad. Its fighters, a small minority of the rebels, have the boldness and skill to storm fortified positions and lead other battalions to capture military bases and oil fields. As their successes mount, they gather more weapons and attract more fighters.

So the U.S. is effectively supporting a civil war in Syria in collaboration with Al-Qaeda whom we are told are "the enemy".

We just cannot make these things up.

What did I tell y'all about one of the goals of Al-Qaeda? A) To end the regimes they consider corrupt and B) To replace them with Sharia based governments. Remember Al-Qaeda is "not winning" and "not getting what it wants".

Black Male Life Expectancy

From Alternet

Black Men Die by 65 at Quadruple U.S Rate...

The benefit of education for African American males stops at 12 years, he said,...

About 40 percent of the least-educated African American males who make it to age 25 will die before they are 65, the study found, as will 22 percent of the most-educated. For all other groups, the chances of dying by age 65 are only 10 percent.

And an interesting side note:

African American women also present a puzzle when it comes to the link between obesity and education. For all other groups, higher education means lower chances of becoming obese, but “that is absolutely not true for black women,” Olshansky said

Reminds me of a comment made by someone I know that black women have it the worst. I had to resist the urge to point out that the data does not prove such a conclusion. Perhaps in certain areas they do but not all 'round. The chart at this location: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/27/2/350/T2.expansion.html Shows that for the disease categories listed, black men die at significantly higher rates than any other group, including black women regardless of educational level. Original article on Health Affairs: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/27/2/350.full?sid=6edcb07a-28d6-4859-8c99-d863306ebcf5

Weapons Sent to Libyan Rebels With U.S. Approval Fell Into Islamist Hands

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.

As the baby in the Etrade commercials says: This would be my shocked face.

the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.

Remember folks: the US and "allies" were to be providing humanitarian aide and protecting civilians not fomenting regime change.

From the NY Times

Growth in China’s Drone Program Called ‘Alarming’

Such is the title of a piece in the NY Times which contains the following:

Israel, Britain and the United States have pretty much had a corner on the global drone market, but the recent Chinese air show and a Pentagon report have exploded that notion.

“In a worrisome trend, China has ramped up research in recent years faster than any other country,” said the unclassified analysis published in July by the Defense Science Board. “It displayed its first unmanned system model at the Zhuhai air show five years ago, and now every major manufacturer for the Chinese military has a research center devoted to unmanned systems.”

The report, which said “the military significance of China’s move into unmanned systems is alarming,” suggested that China could “easily match or outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems.”

Question: Who is it that did not expect that nations, non-white nations, non-white nations who mass produce high technology for "white" nations, to not build drones?

Who is it that didn't think other nations after seeing the US and NATO float drones over countries with no regards to sovereignty and bombing any civilian male 16 years or older who happens to be in a location of "known" terrorists, thought that no one else would produce these things?

Are the people in these "white" nations still so stuck in their racist fantasies of docile people of color that they could not even fathom that their development and use of drones on people of color would not result in the same?

I have written a number of times about drones and the very real threat they pose to life on earth. Well not the drones but the lack of morals that allows their use.

Drones are a game changing technology in warfare. Unlike every other type of technological "advancement" in warfare such as the bow and arrow, spear, gun, missile, bomb, plane, long distance rifles, etc. there has always been some sort of risk to the soldier (intercontinental missiles possibly excepted). A nation had to put a soldier at risk whether he or she be in a plane, on the ground or on or under the sea. There was always some sort of risk entailed with warfare. Drone warfare changes this.

With drones you do not need "well trained" soldiers. You do not need professional soldiers. You could get a teenager who is adept at a game console to operate a drone (and I don't mean just the airplanes). All you need is a drone and a target. The only person at risk is the target as the killer is safely tucked away at his or her controller, which theoretically could be a laptop at their place of residence while the operator is in his or her pajamas.

Seriously.

Have you watched the movie "Surrogates"? There is a scene in there where drones (in the form of androids) are doing the killing while the "soldiers" are in a booth. This is a phase we will go through. Believe that.

Next is the self operating drone. This will be like the episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where the Enterprise encounters a planet in which the biological inhabitants have been killed off by automated learning war drones. The Terminator series also conceptually is plausible sans the liquid metal killers and time travel. The US military is already testing out self programmed drones. These drones would be able to be programmed with predefined targets and be "authorized" to execute when the target is found.

Now do you think that the programming capability to do this is limited to the United States, Britain and Israel?

Oh the UN is now concerned. Apparently the killings of civilians in Pakistan and elsewhere wasn't bother enough. NO, they are concerned because non-whites have the ability now.

Typical.

Warren Buffet Channels The Ghost

I remember back when Obama had floated the idea of lowering the employee tax in order to stimulate business. I got into a silly argument on twitter trying to explain how silly that was because businesses dont' hire or not hire based on taxes. Rather it is the case that businesses hire in response to demand. If they need more people to produce the product or service they will hire that next person to get that profit. It would be near impossible to stifle employment via sane tax policy.

The way I saw it, the entire reduction in employment (payroll) taxes was simply yet another give away to businesses who already have an array of tax regulations that benefit them greatly.

Here comes Warren Buffet saying the same thing:

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.” Would your reply possibly be this? “Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you’re saying we’re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.” Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination does such a response exist.

It's the same argument. What business is going to say "meh, I got all these orders I COULD be filling, customers I could be serving and making that money, but these taxes are just too high so I'm just gonna pass on all that money so I don't have to pay that extra 3 percent (or whatever it is)."

That's silly. You think all the part time hiring going on right now for the holiday season would NOT happen due to payroll taxes? You think all these retailers would pass on selling as much as possible by hiring as many people as necessary to maximize profit?

Clearly not.

Gaza

Let us be clear. Israel is about the last, if not THE last of the European settler states. It was founded by booting people out of their homes. People who still have keys to their homes or who have passed them down to their children.

Right now we have a president of the United States who is directly related to a man who was in the Kenyan Mau Mau resistance, who is defending a white settler state.

This president is in office in part because 95+ percent of African Americans, also victims of European settlers and their descendants who in some cases bombed their towns and "appropriated" their land for their own use without recompense.

Israel is backed by a country founded on the very same violence and dispossession of the native population and no one dares speak this truth in Congress, in the mainstream media or in loud tones for fear of being the target of the financial arm of the Israeli lobby.

This state is supported for one reason and one reason only: The security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

This entire episode with the backdrop of Iran exposes the Big Lie(tm) that the most dangerous country to the stability of the Middle East is Iran. Israel claims to fear an existential threat by a population segregated into less than 10% of the land mass that makes up the area. Iran exists, thousands of miles away and surrounded by American bases and yet and still only Iran is mentioned as a "threat".

Let us be clear. It has been and still is the fact that it is the Europeans who have been floating war ships and establishing bases in the region who are the "existential threats" in the region. It is their settler state on the banks of the Mediterranean that is the existential threat. Let us call this spade a spade. Everything else is politicking.

NLP and the Presidential Campaign

Back in 2008 I saw an article that pointed out that Obama was using NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) in his speeches. For this reason I make it a point to not listen to him speak but rather to read transcripts of his presentations.

Those who are familiar with NLP know that when mastered one can manipulate a lot of "lesser conscious" people easily and also be aware of when other people are trying to hide true intentions or are trying to suggest things to you on a sub-conscious level.

I'm sure a lot of people thought I was just nuts and being an Obama hater. Well the NY Times has revealed that the 2012 campaign in fact used "Behavioral science" experts.

Campaign volunteers who knocked on doors last week in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada did not merely remind people to vote and arrange for rides to the polls. Rather, they worked from a script, using subtle motivational techniques that research has shown can prompt people to take action.

“We used the scripts more as a guide,” said Sarah Weinstein, 18, a Columbia freshman who traveled with a group to Cleveland the weekend before the election. “The actual language we used was invested in the individual person.”

This is classic NLP. Note that in the article they point out that they have not and "cannot" disclose the specific techniques that have been deployed. There is a list of people who are disclosed as being "advisors" look up their work.

If you think that Team Obama is the only one's using such techniques to manipulate the behavior of the general public well I suppose you don't have any emergency supplies in your home either.

Garveyism and Employment

I saw the following at Techyville.com I cannot verify the story but it is in line with the published research in regards to "black sounding" names and employment prospects.

At the end of my little experiment, (which lasted a week), Bianca White had received nine phone calls—I received none. Bianca had received a total of seven emails, while I’d only received two, which again happen to have been the same emails Bianca received. Let me also point out that one of the emails that contacted Bianca for a job wanted her to relocate to a different state, all expenses paid, should she be willing to make that commitment. In the end, a total of twenty-four employers looked at Bianca’s resume while only ten looked at mines.

Is this a conspiracy, or what? I’m almost convinced that White Americans aren’t suffering from disparaging unemployment rates as their Black counterpart because all the jobs are being saved for other White people.

I'm going to paraphrase what Marcus Garvey said in regards to black employment in America:

When the white man needs employment what do you think he will do? He will hire his own first.

Let us be clear that the number ONE reason why African-American unemployment is so high is because we do not have businesses that employ our own first. By not having these businesses we are unable to give our youths the "first job" experiences and must depend on other folks to do that. WHo do you think they are going to hire when it's time to do "first job"? I can't even be mad at them because that is what they are supposed to do.

Unfortunately the most common response to this will be the most common response to this: "they" need to provide (put whatever you want here) for us.

I know folks will see that comment as "shades of Romney" but y'all don't understand: I don't want y'all having to be workers to be exploited and then kicked to the curb by a Romney. If you can't tell the difference then I can't help you.

Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president

From the BBC. I appreciated one of the comments from the president in regards to materialism:

"I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more," he says. "This is a matter of freedom. If you don't have many possessions then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself," he says.

Mau Mau Verdict Exposes Crimes of British Imperialism In Kenya

From the African Globe

Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, described how he was stripped, chained and castrated, with large pliers normally used on cows, at Embakasi detention camp, near Nairobi. He said: “I felt completely destroyed and without hope. I have never had children of my own and never will have. I am unable to have sexual relations with my wife.”

Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, described how when she was 15, she was beaten and subjected to sexual abuse with a glass bottle containing scalding water inserted into her vagina at Gatithi detention camp. She had felt “completely and utterly violated”. The pain “has been bad ever since the beatings and has worsened as I have aged…. I do not understand why I was treated with such brutality for simply having provided food to the Mau Mau.”

No Work, No Pay. The New Economy is the Old Economy

The NY times has a great piece about the employment situation in NY since the storm.

Yesterday, or maybe Thursday I had a brief discussion about the jobs report and how "fishy" they are. I pointed out that the previous report had dropped unemployment by 3 points but the latest one had reported more jobs but had no effect or an increase in unemployment.

I had pointed out that people are taking jobs that don't pay well, are part time and are generally not the type you want to have when you are trying to improve the lot of the so called "middle class". This NYT piece underscores what I've been saying:

Low-wage workers, more likely to be paid hourly and work at the whim of their employers, have fared worse in the recovery than those at the top of the income scale — in New York City the bottom 20 percent lost $463 in annual income from 2010 to 2011, in contrast to a gain of almost $2,000 for the top quintile. And there are an increasing number of part-time and hourly workers, the type that safety net programs like unemployment are not designed to serve. Since 2009, when the recovery began, 86 percent of the jobs added nationally have been hourly. Over all, about 60 percent of the nation’s jobs are hourly. [My emphasis]

Women of the Klan

I good reading on women in the KKK:

Thanks to Kathleen M. Blee's superb scholarship in "Women of the Klan," I must now live with the fact that the Klan contained "all the better people": businessmen, physicians, judges, social workers--even Quakers, political reformers and (this is the truly discomforting part) feminists. In fact, during the 1920s, the period of Blee's research, the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan considered itself, with some justice, to be a major advocate of women's rights and interests--white, Protestant women's rights, that is.

Women of the Klan

While The "Debate" Went On...

While the latest in "Reality TV", AKA The Presidential Debates, were held last night, no one representing an actual ideological difference was present. Expected so, I watched Star Wars again. Sure the whole "we don't have bayonettes" anymore" may be a cute line, but the implication, "We bomb people remotely who we deem could be terrorists" hasn't seemed to pierced the consciousness of most of the viewership. Terrorists, being, in part, those US Citizens who are most pursuasive in their use of their alleged first amendment rights to speak out against a government which they have a grievance against. And oh, yes, their 16 year old sons.

Just in case.

But that's not the point of this post. I just wanted to point the reader to Michael Brenner's piece on the Debate Show(tm):

Yet there was complete agreement during the debate on the direness of the Iranian threat, and the commitment never to allow the mullahs to get close to having the potential for possessing a nuclear bomb – whatever the exaggerated differences on tactics.

Understandably. This is the view propagated by both the Bush and Obama administrations for a dozen years. It exercises complete dominion in the media, in the think tanks and among our political class generally. From the unanimity of opinion, one would never realize that it is based on suppositions of dubious validity....

The crucial assumption is that Iran is a criminal state. That judgment, however, is not based on any standard definition of international criminality. The only offense for which it has been judged guilty is a technical violation of its obligations as a
signatory of the NPT to inform the IAEA in a timely way of all its nuclear activities – in this case, civilian activities. (That since has been done). That’s it. The NPT stipulates no prohibition whatsoever on uranium enrichment to any level, activities that were considered an integral part of the civilian fuel cycle at the time the Treaty was drafted.

Of course nobody brought it up. I haven't seen a comment yet on this particular matter. I haven't even heard any commentary of late of the source of the conflict between Iran and the US (that whole Shah thing).

But I suppose since the Debate Show(tm) is entertainment and not an actual debate or anything intended to actually challenge fundamental policy, or, God forbid, inform the public, that such information doesn't fit the script.

Star Wars and Jar Jar Binks was a better way to spend my time.

Global Government

The idea of a global government is not new to me. It's a staple of Seventh Day Adventist "discussion" and is often mocked as a conspiracy theory by most of the population. Here's Kofi Annan on the subject

It was, by Annan's account, the ultimate moral dilemma; do loyalties lie with the UN and the rule of law, or with innocent civilians being slaughtered? He stands by his support for the Nato airstrikes, but warned at the time that unless the security council was restored as the sole source of legitimacy, the world would be "on a dangerous path to anarchy". [my emphasis]

I found that comment quite striking. The security council as the sole source of legitimacy? Of what? Oh, "The world". Oh. That sounds like a supreme world government to me. And hasn't that how it's been acting? The proper leader of Libya deposed and murdered, literally in the street, by NATO after being given "legitimacy" by the UN. Who is the security council? The former world colonizers, China and Russia. And China's on there because of two things: The Nukes and The Money. So much for "conspiracy".

Bashar al-Assad 'betrayed Col Gaddafi to save his Syrian regime'

French spies operating in Sirte, Gaddafi's last refuge, were able to set a trap for the Libyan dictator after obtaining his satellite telephone number from the Syrian government, they said...

With international attention switching from Libya to the mounting horrors in Syria, Mr Assad offered Paris the telephone number in exchange for an easing of French pressure on Damascus, according to Rami El Obeidi. "In exchange for this information, Assad had obtained a promise of a grace period from the French and less political pressure on the regime – which is what happened," Mr El Obeidi said.

What's that saying? What goes around comes around.

The Telegraph

Muslims in Bangladesh torch Buddhist temples over Facebook image

I've been waiting for folks who took to "explaining" the violence over the YouTube video to discuss this but I haven't seen any commentary. Here's the story:

AMRITSAR, India -- Hundreds of angry Muslims in southeast Bangladesh torched at least 10 Buddhist temples and dozens of homes Sunday after alleging that a Buddhist man insulted Islam on his Facebook page, authorities said.

Muslims, claiming that a Facebook page showed a burned copy of the Koran, headed to several Buddhist villages in the area.

Bangladesh's English-language Daily Star newspaper reported that the Buddhist who allegedly posted the offensive image on Facebook mistakenly tagged it on his Facebook profile and that his account was closed soon after violence erupted even as police escorted him and his mother to safety.

See, so not only can you not burn a Quran. You cannot post a picture of a burnt one in any context whatsoever.

I see.

Not only can you not post a picture of a burnt Quran, but you cannot tag a photo of a burnt Quran for any reason not approved by any and every Muslim who may stumble upon it.

I see.

And if you do such a thing, then regardless to your intent and regardless to whether you were the one who burnt the Quran random "sacred objects" of some other religion is "fair game" just because.

So for all those folks who bent themselves into all manner of positions to argue about Christian - Muslim 'misunderstandings" and the issues with "The West" should look at the fact that it really isn't about Islam and The West" it is about folks in Islam who think everybody has to do with they say, or else. Same threat I discussed before.

US elections 2012 How British companies pour cash into the American elections

I always tell folks that a lot of "entities" that cannot vote (or are even "citizens") have more influence than that of citizens. Here's another nice example:

More than one in five of Britain's largest corporations are channelling political donations to favoured candidates ahead of next month's elections in the US – though these sums may be only the tip of a new campaign-financing iceberg, according to leading politicians, judges and pro-transparency watchdogs....

Among the industries already well versed in bankrolling US politics are finance, pharmaceuticals, energy and defence. British multinationals such as HSBC, Barclays, Experian, Prudential, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, BP, Shell and BAE all have political action committees (PACs) that channel donations from employees to US politicians.< P />

Barcklays Arena anyone?

14 of the top 50 most active foreign-controlled PACs have parent groups listed in London, according to Washington group the Centre for Responsive Politics. This makes the UK the biggest hub for non-US multinationals seeking to exert influence at the US ballot box on 6 November. Despite this, some FTSE 100 groups continue to tell shareholders in annual reports and elsewhere that they do not make political donations. Companies are able to make such claims because PACs receive their funds from US employees – often led by the most senior American executives – and only dip into company coffers to cover administrative costs. Typically, the PACs are staffed by company lobbyists and distribute campaign contributions in line with the company's lobbying agenda.

Guardian UK

Hundreds of pastors back political candidates, defy tax rules

From Reuters

Baptist Pastor Mark Harris stood before his flock in North Carolina on Sunday and joined hundreds of other religious leaders in deliberately breaking the law in an election-year campaign that tests the role of churches in politics.

By publicly backing candidates for political office from the pulpit, Harris and nearly 1,500 other preachers at services across the United States were flouting a law they see as an incursion on freedom of religion and speech.

Under the U.S. tax code, non-profit organizations such as churches may express views on any issue, but they jeopardize their favorable tax-exempt status if they speak for or against any political candidate.

"Pulpit Freedom Sunday" has been staged annually since 2008 by a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. Its aim is to provoke a challenge from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in order to file a lawsuit and have its argument out in court... In that case, the agency took action against James Hammond, pastor of the Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, after he endorsed Republican Michele Bachmann for Congress. The move led to a challenge of the IRS' audit procedure for churches, which the agency lost, and since then there have been no publicly known examples of it taking action against churches.

I have often called for the IRS to stip the non-profit status of any non-profit, particularly organized religious bodies of their status. I do not quite understand how the IRS can lose such a court case. When I started my non-profit the wording could not be any clearer.

Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

So exactly how is the IRS losing a court case with such a clear rule? I think there is politics going on. Each and every organization that sent a video of their leadership, acting in their capacity as leader of said non-profit (as opposed to as a private citizen outside of their duties under the non-profit) should have the organization lose it's status. So either the 2009 case was not a clear cut "Pulpit Freedom" event or there are people who are afraid of being the one to pull the tax-exempt plug from these organizations.