Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1340
February 21, 2015
The Impact and Significance of the Assassination of Malcolm X
Democracy isn’t possible in a country where the ruling elite is above the law.
Originally posted on Libya 360°:
Five decades ago a revolutionary voice was silenced but his message still resonates
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Libya 360°
African American History Month Series, Part VIII
A strong force for the liberation of Africans, African Americans and oppressed people throughout the world was gunned down on Feb. 21, 1965.
At the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights section of Harlem, New York, Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was preparing to address an audience of some 400 people at a weekly meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at 3:15 p.m. when he was interrupted by an apparent diversionary tactic. Then several men stood up and began firing shotguns and pistols at Malcolm X striking him at least six times in the face, chest and other parts of his body.
This act of public premediated murder deriving from a conspiracy was not surprising to many people. Just one week before, the…
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February 20, 2015
Black Girls Matter
Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected
Kimberlé Crenshaw (editor) 2015
(Free PDF)
Black women are the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Black Girls Matters summarizes the research linking Zero Tolerance schools with the growing percentage of black girls and women in the criminal justice system. It fills a big gap in a narrative that mainly focuses on the effect on black males of the “school to prison pipeline.”
While Zero Tolerance policies and high rates of school suspension and expulsion greatly increase the risk of incarceration. as Michelle Alexander writes in The New Jim Crow, the mass incarceration of black males is more directly linked to discriminatory treatment by the police and courts. The crowing percentage of black females in the criminal justice system relates more directly to Zero Tolerance school policies that subject them to high rates of violence, arrest, suspension and expulsion.
The report starts with six extremely alarming examples:
1. The 12 year old girl who faced expulsion and criminal charges in 2014 after writing the world “hi” on the locker room wall of her Georgia middle school.
2. The Detroit honors student suspended for her entire senior year in 2014 for inadvertently bringing a pocket knife to a football game.
3. The 16 year old girl arrested in 2013 when her science experiment caused a small explosion.
4. The 12 year old threatened with expulsion from a private school in 2013 unless she changed her “natural” hair style.
5. The 6 year old arrested in Florida in 2007 for having a tantrum in school.
6. The 16 year old arrested in California in 2007 for dropping cake on the floor and failing to clean it up to a school administrator’s satisfaction.
In their research, the authors found that Zero tolerance schools provide extremely chaotic environments that are neither safe nor conducing to learning. A heavy law enforcement and security presence (ie metal detectors) make girls much likely to attend school. Researchers also found that black girls get much less attention from teachers, due to the expectation that they’re more socially mature and self-reliant than boys. Despite lip service given to zero Tolerance, these schools fail to protect girls from bullying and sexual harassment – then punish them for defending themselves.
School age black girls tend are often likely to have a history of sexual and physical abuse. In the absence of school counseling services, they can often act out in response to personal trauma. In addition, black and Latino girls are more likely than boys to be burdened with family caretaking responsibilities.
The tendency to separate and stigmatize girls who are pregnant or parenting in ways that decrease their motivation to stay in school.
The report also makes the following recommendations:
• State and federal government need to include girls (as well as boys) in their outcome research and programmatic interventions.
• School administrators need to help black girls feel safer at school without relying on harsh discipline that negatively impacts their motivation, achievement and attendance.
• Schools need to genuinely enforce zero tolerance of bullying and sexual harassment.
• Schools need to end policies that funnel girls into the juvenile justice system (such as arresting six year olds for tantrums).
• Schools need to expand programs that support girls who are pregnant, parenting or otherwise assuming significant family responsibilities.
Below the 2009 documentary The War on Kids, provides more background on Zero Tolerance schools:
February 19, 2015
UN Security Council supports Russia’s resolution on Donbass
The US, for once, hasn’t vetoed a Russian-proposed resolution on Donbass. I guess they had no choice. Kiev is clearly incapable of defeating the separatists (who are gaining territory) and the EU opposes Obama’s proposal to escalate the war by providing lethal military aid to Kiev.
Originally posted on Counter Information:
The UN Security Council adopted the Russia-proposed resolution on Donbass. The document became the first resolution that the UN Security Council passed in the past six months. Previously, the countries had failed to find common grounds on the problem during nearly 30 sessions. This time, even the US has not vetoed the resolution. Pravda.Ru asked expert opinion from Professor of the Department of International Law at MGIMO Dmitry Labin to comment on the news.
“Of course, one had to adopt something, because all previous attempts were unsuccessful. Then came the time, when the body responsible for international security measures had to say something. As for the draft resolution that Russia proposed – it could not cause any objections, because the wording of the document is clear and understandable enough. It goes about the efforts to stabilize the situation to establish peace,” said Dmitry Labin.
The expert noted that…
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February 18, 2015
The New Jim Crow
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander (2010)
Book Review
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that the War on Drugs and mass incarceration of African Americans functions as a racialized caste system similar to Jim Crow segregation laws. She defines caste as “as system in which a stigmatized racial group is locked into inferior position by law and custom.” In addition to the mass imprisonment itself, America’s unusually harsh treatment of ex-felons means extraordinarily high numbers of African Americans face legal discrimination for the rest of their life.
It’s both legal and socially acceptable to discriminate against ex-offenders. Federal agencies are legally required to exclude ex-felons from welfare and food stamp programs, public housing and Pell grants and student loans. Job discrimination against ex-felons is legal in nearly all states, and most states prohibit ex-felons from voting or serving on juries. Unable to find jobs or housing (relatives who take them in risk losing their homes under drug forfeiture* laws), many return to prison when they can’t meet the terms of their probation/parole (which usually includes stable housing and employment).
In addition to tracing the political origins of the War on Drugs, The New Jim Crow also provides a detailed analysis of the complex political and sociological dynamics that underlie white racism and the refusal of a post-racial “colorblind” society to acknowledge the immense damage mass incarceration wreaks on African American families and communities. She also explains the perplexing paradox that leads working class whites to vote against their own economic interests by electing Tea Party conservatives.
The War on Drugs: A Republican Scam
As Alexander elegantly demonstrates, the War on Drugs is part of a deliberate strategy by the Republican Party to play on racial animosity among working class whites to win their votes. The American elite has used this divide and conquer strategy to discourage multiracial coalitions all the way back to Bacon’s Rebellion* in 1676. According to Alexander, the original Jim Crow laws were largely a reaction to a brief multiracial coalition that formed as part of the Populist movement in the late 1800s.
Nixon was the first president to deliberately target the racist vote with the intention of transferring previously Democratic southern states to the Republican column. He pioneered the use of racially coded rhetoric such as “law and order,” “tough on crime” and the “undeserving” vs the “deserving” poor.
Here Alexander emphasizes that the affluent white liberals who championed 1960s civil rights legislation were essentially immune to the economic impact of most civil rights legislation. As professionals and academics, they weren’t competing with African Americans for the same jobs. Moreover, as residents of wealthy suburbs, their kids were excluded from mandatory busing laws.
Targeting the Racist Vote
Thanks to a highly sophisticated public relations campaign by Nixon and Republicans, by 1980 low income whites no longer saw poverty as stemming from a faulty economic system. They now blamed civil rights legislation and an overly generous welfare system. As a result, 22% of registered Democrats voted for Reagan in 1980.
Although Nixon coined the term, it would be Reagan who formerly launched the War on Drugs in 1982. The Reagan administration cut the white collar law enforcement in half to focus on street crime. This was during a period when street crime was rapidly declining and sociologists were predicting a phase-out of US prisons as they didn’t deter crime. Reagan also significantly increased DEA and FBI anti-drug enforcement while drastically decreasing funding for drug treatment. He also instituted financial incentives rewarding local policing units for high numbers of drug arrests. Alexander believes these financial rewards were directly responsible for initiating wholesale street sweeps and stop and frisk laws that have led cops to regularly jack up black motorists and inner city youths in the hope of finding illegal drugs.
Finally in 1985, he launched a major media campaign to sensationalize the crack cocaine epidemic. It worked. In 1980, only 2% of the US population viewed illegal drug use as the most important issue facing the US in 1980. By 1989 this number had reached 64%.
Clinton Escalates the War on Drugs
In 1992 Clinton and the New Democrats tried to recapture the Democratic votes they had lost to Regan and Bush by promising to enact even stricter anti-crime and anti-drug laws. Thus it was under Clinton law enforcement budgets and jail populations exploded. It was also Clinton who ended AFDC (Aid For Dependent Children) started under the New Deal – at precisely the same time inner city communities lost all their manufacturing jobs when factories shut down and moved overseas.
Clinton also initiated the federal programs to militarize local police, providing training to set up SWAT teams and surplus Pentagon tanks, body armor, weapons and helicopters. He also enacted the laws denying former drug felons access to federal programs. Sadly Obama, the first African American president, renewed and increased funding for many of these programs.
Discrimination in the Courts
In addition to discriminatory*** drug policing that focuses nearly exclusively on inner cities, African American defendants fare nearly as badly in court. Alexander cites many instances in which poor defendants receive limited or no access to legal representation. Many innocent clients, totally unaware of the future impact of a felony conviction, are intimidated into pleading guilty in return for a reduced sentence.
Ending the War on Drugs
In addition to outlining the ugly racialized history of the War on Drugs, Alexander also summarizes the conservative Supreme Court decisions that have systematically denied due process to people of color facing drug possessions. She concludes by offering a way forward – to end both the War on Drugs and the mass incarceration of people of color.
In addition to legalizing marijuana (and possibly other drugs), she calls for the total structural reform of the criminal justice system. She believes only a multiracial movement with bottom up advocacy for poor blacks and whites alike can bring this about. This is exactly what Martin Luther king was working for when he was assassinated.
In the following video, Alexander talks about her book
*Drug forfeiture or asset forfeiture laws allow federal and state authorities to confiscate any and all assets (mainly homes, cars and cash) of an individual suspected of a drug-related crime. A subsequent finding of innocence doesn’t guarantee return of the assets, which often requires a lengthy and expensive court process. Some police departments deliberately misuse this law to confiscate cash and belongings of black motorists even where no arrest is made.
**Bacon’s Rebellion was an armed rebellion of white settlers and black and white indentured servants that would lead plantation owners to push for formal slavery laws to discourage further collaboration between whites and blacks.
***Although African Americans constitute only 15% of drug users, they represent 75% of the US prison population. Statistically drug dealers are more likely to be white than black, but local law enforcement authorities make no effort to police white suburbs or university campuses for illegal drug use. In fact, 80% of drug arrests are for possession (in 80% of cases for marijuana). Only 20% of arrests are for sales
February 17, 2015
Thousands Take to the Streets of Europe Ahead of Greece, EU Meeting
The people of Greece hold Syriza’s feet to the fire – just in case they’re tempted to back down.
Originally posted on ThereAreNoSunglasses:
Thousands Take to the Streets Ahead of Greece, EU Meeting
A day before a euro zone finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels, thousands hit the streets of Europe to show support for the Greek people and their newly-elected left-wing government which is looking to undo years of imposed austerity programs.
Demonstrations in cities across the UK, France and Spain stood in solidarity with massive crowds in Greece that also went out to express support for the Syriza government led by new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras.
Meanwhile, Syriza officials told media that they remained committed to making good on their promises to Greek voters and improve their country.
“I expect difficult negotiations; nevertheless I am full of confidence,” Tsipras told Germany’s Stern magazine. “I promise you: Greece will then, in six months’ time, be a completely different country.”
“The Greek government is determined to stick to its commitment towards the public … and not continue a program that has the characteristics of the previous bailout agreement,” Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis said to Greece’s Skai television.
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February 16, 2015
Seattle’s New Youth Movement
For Martin Luther King day, the Garfield High School Black Student Union held a panel discussion on Seattle’s burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement. In their first major protest, thousands of Seattle students walked out of their high schools when the grand jury failed to indict Darren Wilson for killing unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
The keynote speaker is John Carlos. Carlos is the former track and field athlete whose Black Power salute (along with Tommie Smith’s) during the 1968 Olympics caused massive international controversy.
February 15, 2015
McDonald’s now including free vaccines alongside Happy Meals
Sadly this isn’t satire. McDonald’s profits are declining so they’re expanding their range of services.
Originally posted on consciousshift2012 :
You Couldn’t Make This Shit Up
The only way to make a processed, chemical-laden Happy Meal even happier, it seems, is to accompany it with an injection of aluminum into the bodies of young children.
A McDonald’s restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, has announced it is offering free vaccine shots to children who swing by the restaurant.
READ MORE…….
February 14, 2015
Did Global Economic Growth End 15 Years Ago?
According to London Broker, Global Economy is Shrinking
The main premise of Life After Growth: How the Global Economy Really Works – and Why 200 Years of Growth are Over is that global economic growth has ended. Western governments conceal this fact through debt creation, inflation and clever manipulation of statistical economic indicators. According to Tim Morgan, leading analyst at the London financial brokerage Tullett Prebon, economic growth ended in 2000 and the economy has been shrinking ever since.
Morgan attributes the end of global economic growth to the high cost of fossil fuels.* This is because the real economy (which many people confuse with the financial economy) is a direct function of surplus energy. In pre-agricultural times, there was no energy surplus: human beings derived exactly the same amount of energy from their food as they expended acquiring it. With the advent of farming, they managed to produce a small surplus of energy that enabled a small minority to engage in work other than food production.
In the 18th century the invention of the heat engine enabled surplus energy (and the real economy) to grow exponentially over the next 200 years. Now that the cheap fossil fuel has been used up, our energy surplus is declining. This, in turn, is reflected in the gradual shrinkage of the global economy.
Measuring Surplus Energy
Energy surplus is measured as EROEI (Energy Returned Over Energy Invested), the ratio between the energy produced and the energy consumed in the extraction or production process. 1930s oil fields had an EROEI of 100:1. Once the easily accessible oil was used up, the EROEI began to decline. It was 30:1 in 2000 and it declines by about 2% a year. In 2014 it stood at 14:1. Unconventional oil sources have an extremely low EROEI (eg tar sands and fracked shale oil have an EROEI of 3:1).**
Declining EROEI’s are always accompanied by a spike in oil prices. This translates into higher prices for everything, due to the energy required for food production and manufacturing. Owing to higher prices, people consume less and the economy slows.
Globalization Has Been Extremely Damaging
Morgan is highly critical of politicians who fail to distinguish between the real economy of goods and services and the shadow economy of money and finance. He also feels globalization and rampant consumerism have been extremely damaging to the real economy. The mistake western countries made with globalization was reducing their production without reducing consumption. Instead they increased consumption levels by increasing borrowing and debt. Globalization was extremely beneficial for banks, due to the voracious demand for their product (loans). Meanwhile the diversion of large sums from production to the finance sector – aggravated by consumerism and the rise of consumer debt – hastened the decline of the real economy.
This wholesale debt creation and the widening split between the real economy and the financial economy is largely reflected in inflation and the destruction of the value of money. The US dollar lost 87% of its purchasing power between 1962 and 2012, which the government systematically conceals through misreporting of key economic indicators.
All economies function best when the financial economy coincides with the real economy. At present the primary methods of debt destruction are quantitative easing*** and inflation (it’s always easier to repay debts with devalued money). Other methods in the wings are cuts in pensions and Social Security payments and eventually bank failures and government defaults. Morgan feels that resource poor countries like Japan and the UK are at highest risk for default.
How Governments Lie with Statistics
My favorite chapter details the decades of statistical manipulations that have made government indicators of inflation, growth, output, debt and unemployment totally meaningless. John Kennedy was the first to exclude “discouraged” workers (who weren’t actively seeking work) from the unemployment rate. Johnson was the first to conceal the size of the government deficit by including the Social Security surplus in the federal budget. Nixon was the first to exclude energy and food costs (which rise the fastest) from core inflation calculations.
I was most shocked to learn that 16% of GDP consists of “imputations” or dollars that don’t actually exist. The largest single imputation the US government adds is “owner equivalent” rent. This is an amount equivalent to the rent all rent homeowners would have to pay if they didn’t own their own home. In 2011, this added up to $1.2 billion (out of a total GDP of $12.7 trillion).
The second largest imputation involves non-cash benefits employers give their workers (medical insurance, meals, accommodation, etc) and free banking services.
The US Government is Technically Bankrupt
This over-reporting of GDP, combined with under-reporting of inflation, makes it appear that the US economy is growing when it’s not. .
Morgan estimates that as of 2011 true US debt (government, business and personal) was 449% of GDP. Technically this means the US is insolvent as collective liabilities far exceed any realistic prediction of future income.
Politicians Need to Stop Lying
Morgan maintains that industrialized societies urgently need to living with less surplus energy. Rather than continuing to delude themselves (and us), our political leaders must face up to the reality that our claims on future energy surpluses (aka debt) are totally unrealistic.
They need to end globalization and rampant consumerism and enact policies (support for renewable energy, public transport and strong local economies) that will help people adapt to the new economic reality.
*Most analysts predict oil prices will return to $100+ a barrel in June 2015, once the US surplus is used up.
**Some other EROEI’s (for the sake of comparison):
• Coal 8:1
• Solar PVC panels 8:1
• Solar concentrating power: 17:1
• Large hydro generation: 22:1
• Small hydrogenation 32:1
• Landfill/sewage gas cogeneration 40:1
• Onshore wind 20:1
*** Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional form of monetary policy where a Central Bank creates new money electronically to buy financial assets, like government bonds. This differs from conventional money creation, in which private banks create money out of thin air as new loans (see An IMF Proposal to Ban Banks from Issuing Money).
Also published in Veterans Today
February 13, 2015
We Want You To (Bleep) Off And Leave The Middle East Alone An Egyptian Satirist in America – Bassem Youssef
At last an analysis of Middle East tensions that makes sense. Youssef compares US policy in the Middle East to a on a dog’s butt (that the US won’t stop licking).
Originally posted on Counter Information:
Video
Egyptian political satirist Bassem Youssef suggests ways in which to improve the conditions in the Middle East.
Posted February 12, 2015
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40963.htm
February 12, 2015
Why the Low Fat Diet Makes You Fat (and Gives You Heart Disease, Cancer and Tooth Decay)
The Truth About Animal Fat: What the Research Shows
The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet lays out the scientific case why our bodies are healthiest on a diet rich in saturated fat from animal products. Analyzing study after study, Nina Teicholz leaves no doubt that the number one cause of the global epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease is the low fat high carbohydrate diet doctors have been pushing for fifty years.
Blaming the Victim
My initial reaction on learning how the low fat diet became official government policy was to feel ripped off and angry. For decades, the medical establishment has been blaming fat people for being obese, portraying them as weak willed and lacking in self control. It turns out the blame lay squarely with their doctors, the American Heart Association (AHA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Congress and the food manufacturers who fund the AHA (Proctor and Gamble, Nabisco, General Foods, Heinz, Quaker Oats and Corn Products Refining Corporation) for foisting a diet on them that increases appetite and weight gain.
The law fat diet is based on a “theory” put forward in the 1950s that heart disease was caused by elevated cholesterol levels – and a few deeply flawed epidemiological studies. In other words, the low fat diet is a giant human experiment the medical profession conducted on the American public while attempting to prove that saturated animal fats cause heart disease. Fifty years of research would show the exact opposite: not only do low fat high carbohydrate diets increase the risk of cardiac death, but they’re also responsible for a myriad of other health problems, with obesity and diabetes being the most problematic.
The studies Teicholz cites also debunk the myth that animal fat increases the risk of breast and colon cancer.
Heart Attacks Rare Prior to 1900
Coronary artery disease and heart attacks were virtually unknown prior to 1900. When Ancel Keys, the father of the low fat diet, began his anti-fat crusade in the 1950s he claimed that industrialization and an improved standard of living had caused Americans to switch from a plant based diet to a diet that was higher in animal fats. This was total rubbish. Prior to 1900, Americans had always eaten a meat-based diet, in part because wild game was much more plentiful in North America than in Europe. Early cookbooks and diaries reveal that even poor families had meat or fish with every meal. Even slaves had 150 pounds of red meet a year, which contrasts unfavorably with 40-70 pounds of red meat in the current American diet.
What changed in the twentieth century was the introduction of cheaper vegetable fats into the American diet, starting with margarine and Crisco in the early 1900s.
Keys was also responsible for the theory, again without research evidence, that high cholesterol levels cause heart disease. This was also rubbish. Fifty years of research negates any link between either total cholesterol or LDL* cholesterol and heart disease. In study after study the only clear predictor of heart disease (in study after study) is reduced HDL. The same studies show that diets high in animal fats increase HDL, while those high in sugar, carbohydrates and vegetable oils reduce HDL.
Teicholz also discusses the role of statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) in this context. Statins do reduce coronary deaths, but this is due to their anti-inflammatory effect – not because of their effect on cholesterol.
Researchers Silenced and Sidelined
For decades, researchers whose findings linked low fat diets with higher rates of heart disease, cancer, stroke and tooth decay were systematically silenced and sidelined. As frequently happens with doctors scientists who challenge the powerful health industry, their grants were cut off and, in some cases, their careers destroyed.
For fifty years, the medical establishment simply ignored the growing body of research linking the high sugar/carbohydrate component of the low fat diet to heart disease, as well as those linking vegetable oils to cancer. Vegetable oils oxidize when cooked, leading to the production of cancer causing compounds such as aldehyde, formaldehyde and 4-hydroxnonene (HCN). Unsurprisingly diets in which vegetable oils (other than olive oil) are the primary fat are linked with an increased incidence of cancer. Several studies overseas have found high levels of respiratory cancer in fast food workers exposed to superheated vegetable oils.
The Atkins Diet
The Big Fat Surprise includes a long section on the Atkins diet, a popular high fat/protein low carbohydrate weight reduction diet in the 70s and 80s. The use of a high fat low carbohydrate diet for weight loss dates back to 1862 and was heavily promoted by Sir William Osler in his 1892 textbook of medicine. According to Teicholz, recent controlled studies totally vindicate Dr Robert C Atkins, who was ridiculed as a dangerous quack during his lifetime. They also debunk claims that high levels of protein in the Atkins diet cause kidney damage. In addition to being perfectly safe, controlled studies show it to be extremely effective for weight loss and treating diabetes.
The USDA and AHA Quietly Reverse Themselves
As Teicholz points out in her conclusion, the nutrition researchers who blindly pursued their anti-fat campaign – and politicians and corporate funders who supported them – have done Americans an immense disservice by creating a virtual epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
A few years ago, the tide began to turn, largely due to the 29,000 subject Women’s Health Initiative launched in 1993. In 2013, the USDA and AHA quietly eliminated fat targets from the dietary recommendations. Because they made no real effort to publicize their change of heart, many doctors are still giving their patients the wrong dietary advice and hounding them about their cholesterol levels.
Dump the Skim Milk
The take home lesson from this book is that it’s virtually impossible to eat too many eggs or too much red meat, cheese, sausage and bacon. Americans (and their overseas English-speaking cousins) need to dump the skim milk and margarine down the sink because whole milk and butter are better for you. People need to go back to cooking with lard, bacon drippings and butter. Cooking with vegetable oils can give you cancer.
Anyone with a weight problem needs to totally eliminate sugar and carbohydrate (the Atkins diet recommends less than half a slice of bread a day).
And if your doctor hassles you about your cholesterol tell him or her to read this book.
*LDL (low density lipoprotein) is referred to as “bad cholesterol” due to its alleged link to heart disease. HDL (high density lipoprotein) or “good cholesterol” appears to provide some protective effect against heart disease.
Also published at Veterans Today
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