December 14, 2014

Why won't Barack Obama prosecute CIA torturers?

*** SOCIALIST PROGRESSIVES GROUP POST ***

By Raf Sanchez, Washington
8:45PM GMT 12 Dec 2014

... The release of the report has been explosive. Deep rifts between the CIA and the Democratic Party have erupted into public view. Morale has slumped at the spy agency and Republicans are accusing the White House of leaving America's spooks to swing in the wind.

Imagine how much worse all of that would be if the Obama administration was actually trying to send people to prison. The President would be prosecuting the friends and colleagues of the spies he relies on every day to keep the US safe from terrorism. If the Justice Department went after George W Bush or Dick Cheney or other senior officials it would be seen as using the criminal justice system to persecute political opponents.

Mr Obama and his aides may also fear that if they initiate prosecutions for torture they may one day face charges themselves over America's deeply-divisive campaign of drone strikes ...

Much more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/11291476/Why-wont-Barack-Obama-prosecute-CIA-torturers.html

December 8, 2014

Temporary Fix -

but better than we have right now (on Bernie Sanders Facebook page today)

December 7, 2014

I Can't Breathe

Reggie Bush and other NFL players wear Eric Garner 'I can't breathe' slogan on clothing

Actions come a week after Rams players made ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ gestures
NBA’s Derrick Rose wore the same message on warmup T-shirt Saturday night

Story here: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/07/reggie-bush-and-other-nfl-players-wear-i-cant-breathe-slogan-on-clothing



Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, left, talks with Cleveland Browns cornerback Johnson Bademosi. Photograph: Tony Dejak/AP

December 5, 2014

The System is Guilty

Amen, sister (from the Guardian) #HandsUpDontShoot #ICantBreathe #BlackLivesMatter

December 3, 2014

Black Men Killed by Police

I'm putting this here and clicking my journal so I can find it when needed. Note Armand Bennett on the bottom who is still alive, but was shot in the head (no idea what kind of condition he is in currently). It says the cop turned off the camera. So, I think when we make recommendations that cops wear cameras 24/7 - that these are cameras that do not get turned off. Smh.

November 28, 2014

The Meaning of Black Friday

The Meaning of Black Friday
by Guy Rundle ~ 11.28.14 ~ Guy Rundle is an Australian author and journalist

~ When Black Friday devours Thanksgiving, capitalism consumes one of its sustaining myths ~

Black Friday began as a traffic accident. Or a series of them. In Philadelphia in the early 1960s, police noted that the two days after Thanksgiving were characterized by heavy traffic, and, in the pre-Nader days of perilous auto travel, more bloody mayhem than usual.

The relationship between extra traffic and downtown sales had been observed early on, and traders were unhappy that the ominous name was sticking to one of their best sales days. Doubtless this had happened elsewhere too, but in Philadelphia business had Abe Rosen as their municipal representative. One of the country’s leading PR gurus, Rosen suggested the city rename the two days after Thanksgiving “Big Friday” and “Big Saturday.”

< snip >

So it was inevitable that “Big Friday” would revert, for “Black Friday” is constitutionally mired in sin. By the time it stuck in the 80s, it had acquired a new meaning that cemented it. It was allegedly the day that retailers finally “went into the black” — made a profit — and shopping thus acquired a civic and patriotic dimension.

< snip >

As with all aspects of American consumption in the 2000s, it acquired a surreal aspect. The many objects being hoarded and carted away were so large, the malls were so big, the cars were so oversized that the spectacle was almost a parody of consumption ...

Much more here - https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/the-meaning-of-black-friday/

November 27, 2014

Fighting the hunger games at Walmart

Elizabeth Schulte reports on preparations for Black Friday protests at Walmart.
November 26, 2014

FOR THE third Black Friday in a row, Walmart workers are turning the busiest shipping day of the year into the busiest protest day of the year at the country's largest retailer. The demands of this year's protests are $15 an hour, full-time hours and an end to retaliation by management.

The fact that this day of action is taking place the day after Thanksgiving dramatizes the difficulty many Walmart employees face just feeding their families. With average wages of just $8.81 an hour, Walmart employees who work "full time"--which, according to Walmart, is 34 hours a week--make $15,500 per year, which is about $8,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of four.

"There are people who are homeless and living in their cars who work at Walmart and can't afford to pay rent," Venanzi Luna, a Walmart employee and OUR Walmart activist living in Southern California, said in an interview. "They can't afford a better life, because they live check by check."

One in 10 retail workers are employed at Walmart, so the chain sets the standard for the whole low-wage industry. And Walmart sets the standard very, very, very low ....

Much more here: http://socialistworker.org/2014/11/26/fighting-the-hunger-games-at-walmart

November 27, 2014

America’s Founding Myths

11.27.14 ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a longtime activist and the author, most recently, of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America — “from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters” — are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today.

It should not have happened that the great civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, the very evidence of the Western Hemisphere, were wantonly destroyed, the gradual progress of humanity interrupted and set upon a path of greed and destruction. Choices were made that forged that path toward destruction of life itself—the moment in which we now live and die as our planet shrivels, overheated. To learn and know this history is both a necessity and a responsibility to the ancestors and descendants of all parties.

US policies and actions related to indigenous peoples, though often termed “racist” or “discriminatory,” are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism—settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, “The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life — or, at least, land is necessary for life.

The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism — the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society ....

Much more here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/americas-founding-myths/

November 26, 2014

NYC Solidarity Protests (Photos)

Some great photos on this blog - http://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/nyc-protests-in-solidarity-over-ferguson-verdict

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November 26, 2014

Just vs. Unjust Laws (Letter from Birmingham Jail)

Letter From Birmingham Jail
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 16, 1963

Excerpt:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of Harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus is it that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Read the entirety of Brother Martin's letter here: http://www.drmartinlutherkingjr.com/letterfrombirminghamjail.htm