World famous journalist, the man who is the epitome of "Fisking" -- Robert Fisk -- weighs in on the Syrian War now that the Rooshuns have weighed in.
[Independent] The Russian air force in Syria has flown straight into the West’s fantasy air space. The Russians, we are now informed, are bombing the “moderates” in Syria – “moderates” whom even the Americans admitted two months ago, no longer existed.
It’s rather like the Isis fighters who left Europe to fight for the “Caliphate”.Remember them? Scarcely two months ago, our political leaders – and leader writers – were warning us all of the enormous danger posed by “home-grown” Islamists who were leaving Britain and other European countries and America to fight for the monsters of Isis. Then the hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees began trekking up the Balkans towards Europe after risking death in the Mediterranean – and we were all told by the same political leaders to be fearful that Isis killers were among them.
It’s amazing how European Muslim fighters fly to Turkey to join Isis, and a few weeks later, they’re drowning in leaky boats or tramping back again and taking trains from Hungary to Germany. But if this nonsense was true, where did they get the time for all the terrorist training they need in order to attack us when they get back to Europe?
It is possible, of course, that this was mere storytelling. By contrast, the chorus of horror that has accompanied Russia’s cruel air strikes this past week has gone beyond sanity.
Let’s start with a reality check. The Russian military are killers who go for the jugular. They slaughtered the innocent of Chechnya to crush the Islamist uprising there, and they will cut down the innocent of Syria as they try to crush a new army of Islamists and save the ruthless regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian army, some of whose members are war criminals, have struggled ferociously to preserve the state – and used barrel bombs to do it. They have also fought to the death. The Russians also slaughtered a fair number of bad guys, not just innocents. As for war criminals: it depends on who wins as to who is a war criminal. If Assad and the Rooshuns win, nothing they did will be prosecuted as a war crime.
“American officials” – those creatures beloved of The New York Times – claim that the Syrian army does not fight Isis. If true, who on earth killed the 56,000 Syrian soldiers – the statistic an official secret, but nonetheless true – who have so far died in the Syrian war? The preposterous Free Syrian Army (FSA)?
This rubbish has reached its crescendo in the on-again off-again saga of the Syrian “moderates”. These men were originally military defectors to the FSA, which America and European countries regarded as a possible pro-Western force to be used against the Syrian government army. But the FSA fell to pieces, corrupted, and the “moderates” defected all over again, this time to the Islamist Nusrah Front or to Isis, selling their American-supplied weapons to the highest bidder or merely retiring quietly – and wisely – to the countryside where they maintained a few scattered checkpoints.
Washington admitted their disappearance, bemoaned their fate, concluded that new “moderates” were required, persuaded the CIA to arm and train 70 fighters, and this summer packed them off across the Turkish border to fight – whereupon all but 10 were captured by Nusrah and at least two of them were executed by their captors. Just two weeks ago, I heard in person one of the most senior ex-US officers in Iraq – David Petraeus’s former No 2 in Baghdad – announce that the “moderates” had collapsed long ago. Now you see them – now you don’t.
But within hours of Russia’s air assaults last weekend, Washington, The New York Times, CNN, the poor old BBC and just about every newspaper in the Western world resurrected these ghosts and told us that the Russkies were bombing the brave “moderates” fighting Bashar’s army in Syria – the very “moderates” who, according to the same storyline from the very same sources a few weeks earlier, no longer existed. Our finest commentators and experts – always a dodgy phrase – joined in the same chorus line.
So now a few harsh factoids. The Syrian army are drawing up the operational target lists for the Russian air force. But Vladimir Putin has his own enemies in Syria.
The first strikes – far from being aimed at the “moderates” whom the US had long ago dismissed – were directed at the large number of Turkmen villages in the far north-west of Syria which have for many months been occupied by hundreds of Chechen fighters – the very same Chechens whom Putin had been trying to liquidate in Chechnya itself. These Chechen forces assaulted and destroyed Syria’s strategic hilltop military Position 451 north of Latakia last year. No wonder Bashar’s army put them on the target list.
Other strikes were directed not at Isis but at Islamist Jaish al-Shams force targets in the same area. But in the first 24 hours, Russian bombs were also dropped on the Isis supply line through the mountains above Palmyra.
The Russians specifically attacked desert roads around the town of Salamia – the same tracks used by Isis suicide convoys to defeat Syrian troops in the ancient Roman city of Palmyra last May.
They also bombed areas around Hassakeh and the Isis-held Raqqa air base where Syrian troops have fought Islamists over the past year (and were beheaded when they surrendered).
Russian ground troops, however, are in Syria only to guard their bases. These are symbolic boots on the ground – but the idea that those boots are there to fight Isis is a lie. The Russians intend to let the Syrian ground troops do the dying for them. Not quite true. There are Russian volunteers fighting for Assad deep in Syria, and talk around the water cooler is that no more than a brigade of Russian heavy infantry -- about 5,000 troops including support troops -- are to be deployed to Syria soon, to guard an expanded Russian air campaign.
No, there are no good guys and bad guys in the Syrian war. The Russians don’t care about the innocents they kill any more than do the Syrian army or Nato. Any movie of the Syrian war should be entitled War Criminals Galore! There are never any good guys in war, unless the Americans are fighting. Then Americans are always the good guys.
Don't forget the Israelis. They're good guys, too.
But for heaven’s sake, let’s stop fantasising. A few days ago, a White House spokesman even told us that Russian bombing “drives moderate elements… into the hands of extremists”.
Who’s writing this fiction? “Moderate elements” indeed…
From Kit Lange of the Washington state based Patrick Henry Society:
It’s been roughly 36 hours since a patriot in Oregon—local activist Casey Runyan—posted on Facebook to say that “on Friday, we assemble.” Runyan’s words were a direct call to patriots in the Pacific NW to stand with citizens in Roseburg who have already made it clear that Obama is not welcome there for his planned visit on Friday. The call was regional…but the answer was national. The rally went viral. Not even the mainstream Obama cheering section can ignore it anymore.
In that 36 hours, 23,000 people have been invited on Facebook alone, not counting emails, Twitter, and other social media. Watching the incoming links on PHS yesterday, I counted no less than 26 various patriot, gun, and prepper forums who were discussing it. Almost 2,500 people are listed as “going” on Facebook with another 1,000 as “maybe.” A search on Facebook for posts about the rally net an astronomical number of results. To say that Runyan’s words sparked a firestorm is like saying Hillary is possibly a bit of a liar.
#7
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed to cross the street JohnQC. In fact they will probably escort to at least 3-6 blocks away, ironically by gunpoint if necessary.
Only rabid Obama supporters would be allowed to attend. And pay no attention to the parking lots full of busses used to bring them in from Portland or Seattle.
#9
Even if only half of the people that are saying they will be there show up, that is over 3,000 armed people protesting.
The MSM will try to spin it as militant right wing groups and there really weren't all that many, but behind closed doors the libs will be peeing themselves.
I truly don't think they understand the level of anger that is out there against what they are doing to the US and when it finally pours out they will wail and lament how this could ever happen to them by barbarians.
#10
The trip is now morphing into a fund raising tour.
Yeah, and now they say he's heading to San Diego. Thanks, Roesburg. Thanks a bunch. You know what that's gonna do to the traffic? JohnQC might notice while the SS is escorting him across those three to six blocks that all those streets have been closed and all the traffic has been detoured around it just so obummer and some of his local sycophants can have a fancy get together.
[CNN] The insanity that Donald Trump embodies in his unique dash for the White House became all-too-obvious this past weekend when he suggested that teachers at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, should have been armed and waiting. He complained that this college was "a gun-free zone." At a campaign stop in Tennessee, he added: "Let me tell you, if you had a couple teachers with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off." Hard to argue against that, but Jay here is going to give it a shot.
We can hope this his shoot-from-the-lip nonsense will accomplish two things: Put a stop to this man's political pretensions and, more importantly, draw attention to the madness of guns in this country. Yep. Just the other day I asked Olga, my Russian bolt action rifle, if she was still mad, and she was silent. Two things I can take from this: 1) She's really, REALLY mad. 2) She's thinking about it.
How many more lives have to be ruined by guns before we finally take them away? And how often do we have to listen to crazy people (including members of the Supreme Court) telling us that the Second Amendment grants every American citizen the right to carry a weapon? Actually, it doesn't grant that. Americans already have that right. The 2nd Amendment only says that the government can't take firearms away from the people.
I'm tired of hearing about this "well-regulated militia" that is so necessary for American freedom. The phrase "a well regulated militia", to my mind is separate from keeping and bearing arms. What is necessary for American freedom is for the government to limit itself as to laws and regulations on the American people.
OK, if you want a "well-regulated" militia, get some strong regulations in place. I don't myself mind if, in addition to the police and the military, there are some self-appointed militias in old-fashioned breeches carrying muskets -- that's the sort of firearm our Founding Fathers knew about. But let's regulate them. Jay wants more government, which runs counter to the very spirit of the Constitution. He cracks wise over the issue of muskets, when in fact, as has been pointed out repeatedly, today's semiautomatic rifles are today's muskets.
I suspect that the framers of the Bill of Rights have long since rolled over in their graves. They never meant that ordinary citizens, including crackpots, should be able to buy weapons meant for battlefields. The only people who should be carrying military-style weapons are soldiers and police officers. Coz nothing says freedom for the American people than restricting firearms to thugs paid by the politicians.
And Donald Trump is dead wrong: Teachers should not carry weapons.
I've been teaching full-time for 41 years at small colleges, and I can't imagine what it would mean for me or my colleagues to be armed with handguns or rifles instead of books and a thorough knowledge of our chosen disciplines. In my view, an educational institution is the last place on Earth where anyone should ever dream of having a weapon on hand just in case a madman turns up.
Madmen the world over agree. That is why when a mad man comes to a campuses, they know that will make the biggest last gasp for fame because they will take the lies of large numbers of their fellow citizens with them.
Do we really want our campuses turned into armed camps? Jay, consider arming teachers as a roach motel for armed mad men. You can walk in with the intention of committing mayhem, but no way you will walk out. That is a very powerful incentive not to do it and to seek other forms of self expression.
Colleges and classrooms should be havens of tranquility, places where thoughtful discussions occur, where students work together with their teachers to acquire knowledge of the arts and sciences. A campus should be peaceful and peace-loving, and they should be places where arguments are made and defended rationally, with evidence. That won't change with allowing firearms, and arguably it will allow debate to become more vigorous.
The fact that Christopher Harper-Mercer was legally able to acquire so many guns was decried by his own father, Ian Mercer. "How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?" he wondered aloud, decrying our lack of gun laws. Good for him to say that! It's been the same problem again and again: madmen get their hands on dangerous weapons. And, too often, they do so legally. I heard that Harper-Mercer blamed Christian wimmins coz he couldn't get laid. With the wampum required to buy 13 firearms, he could have had a pretty good time in 'Vegas with hookers and blow.
Let me dream for a moment: I would much prefer to live in a country where only hunters who pass appropriately strict tests for mental competence and a knowledge of gun safety can still acquire rifles that are appropriate for hunting. Handguns and assault rifles would be banned, period. Dream on.
And no, guns do not make you safer, as countless studies have shown. A household with guns is a dozen times more likely to have someone in that house killed by an intruder. Makes sense, but if public safety was the only issue, we would be like Australia and Great Britain. Freedom is the only measure for owning a firearm, not governmental dicta.
It's also obvious that handgun ownership, in particular, wildly increases the chances that somebody will die from suicide by using that gun. It's harder to kill yourself with a knife or razor blade, as studies have shown again and again. And more police officers are killed in areas where there are more weapons around. The facts are not up for grabs here. No, facts aren't up for grabs, it is true, just how they're displayed. And Jay, here has completely ignored the rights of the other 100 million plus gun owners, by making them responsible for the actions of a tiny minority.
There is no safety in gun ownership. Only threat. So far, the main threat is more writers such as Jay, who wants to increase government so they can take money, guns and lives just so Jay won't soil his knickers over the next massacre.
So let's get rid of guns in this country, once and for all, making it a felony to possess a handgun or assault rifle. Over a period of years, illegal guns will gradually disappear. Guns don't kill people, as they say. People who acquire guns -- legally or illegally -- do. And we should make it extremely difficult for them to get their hands on these weapons. As I have said repeatedly, the first step in the registration/confiscation two step that has been tried thus far in New York and Connecticut, has been a failure of legendary proportions. Trying that at the national level will most certainly be at least one of the causes for another civil war. And this time, Jay, you won't be able to hide behind the police or any security detail while claiming this isn't what you wanted. Especially if that same security force decides they'd rather go home and be with their own families than protect you. Or they have caught the flu, or they resign. In those instances, things will start to go very bad for you. My suggestion: Get a gun. Now.
In the meantime, let's send Donald Trump back to the world of skyscrapers and casinos, where he belongs. If you were a Republican, I would suggest you vote him out. But since you are a leftist, I suggest you get a gun.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/08/2015 7:31 Comments ||
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#2
The local university posts signs that say the University is a "gun free" zone. Thugs/crazies don't pay much attention to such admonitions. They know, because of these postings that it is likely they will be able to do what they want without opposition. The thugs and crazies tend to view gun free zones as easy pickens and a target (victim) rich environments. I used to feel like a sitting duck with a target on my back while teaching there.
President Obama is clearly fed up. His speeches after mass shootings — speeches that have become a bit of a morbid ritual, given how regularly the shootings occur — have grown angrier, more emotional, and more disgusted at America's gun violence problem and Congress's unwillingness to do literally anything to stop it. "This is a political choice that we make," Obama declared Thursday night, after the 294th mass shooting of 2015, "to allow this to happen every few months in America." I saw a graphic that points out that under Obama, mass shootings are on the rise. Is there a correlation? Dunno.
But let's be clear about precisely what kind of choice this is. Congress's decision not to pass background checks is not what's keeping the US from European gun violence levels. The expiration of the assault weapons ban is not behind the gap. What's behind the gap, plenty of research indicates, is that Americans have more guns. The statistics are mind-blowing: America has 4.4 percent of the world's population but almost half of its civilian-owned guns. Woo hoo! Arsenal of democracy, baby. That's America!
Realistically, a gun control plan that has any hope of getting us down to European levels of violence is going to mean taking a huge number of guns away from a huge number of gun owners. I am sure federal and state security forces will get right on that.
Other countries have done exactly that. Australia enacted a mandatory gun buyback that achieved that goal, and saw firearm suicides fall as a result. But the reforms those countries enacted are far more dramatic than anything US politicians are calling for — and even they wouldn't get us to where many other developed countries are. The writer wants to turn America into a penal colony like Australia, a road which we are fairly well along.
Think about it this way. In 2013, the US had 106.4 gun deaths per million people. In 2011, the last year for which we have numbers, the UK endured 146 gun deaths total — or 2.3 gun deaths per million people.
To get to UK levels, we'd need to reduce gun deaths by nearly 98 percent. Even if we wanted to reach the same levels as Finland — another developed country with a relatively high rate of gun deaths — we'd need to drop from 106.4 deaths per million to 35 — more than a 67 percent reduction. Forgive my interjection, but, seriously, who gives a flying f*ck how many Finns or Brit are killed by other Finns or Brits? As a matter of fact, who cares about government statistics, which are routinely twisted into a meaningless pretzel which has lost all resemblance to its original form, like our Constitution and how it should be interpreted.
And here's the truth: Even the most ardent gun control advocates aren't pushing measures that could close the gap. Not even close.
Plenty of research has found a strong correlation between the amount of guns in an area and its gun homicide rate. Countries with more guns have more gun homicides. States with more guns have more gun homicides. Individuals with guns in the house are likelier to be killed or to kill themselves with guns. As I have said repeatedly, the more guns that are in the hands of people the higher the criminal instances of their use. It's just demographics. Freedom is messy and dangerous, and it always has been. You want to turn America into Nerf World, where no one ever gets hurt and everyone pulls down $40k per year without lifting a finger. Good luck with that.
So Australia's 1996 gun control was based on a simple idea: They took away a bunch of guns. And Australia is a lesser nation for it.
After a 28-year-old man killed 35 people at the Port Arthur historic prison colony in Tasmania, Australia, a popular tourist destination, Prime Minister John Howard and his right-wing Liberal Party banned the importation of all semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns, instituted a mandatory national buyback program for such guns, and convinced state governments to ban the weapons outright. In total, about 650,000 weapons — 20 percent of the country's total arsenal by some estimates — were seized and destroyed. Every Australian who believes in liberty and freedom should be ashamed by what happened in 1996.
Evaluations after the reforms suggest that they saved lives. A study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University estimated that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people led to a statistically significant drop in firearm suicides — 74 percent, in fact, with no parallel increase in non-firearm suicides. While gun control opponents have tried to rebut those results, those responses have been riddled with methodological flaws, and even some of the study's critics have conceded that the laws likely cut down on suicides. I won't rebut those claims, except to say those claims are, or at least should be irrelevant to a free people. A suicide only matters if it is someone close or a relative, and even then, I don't demand a hostile government take away firearms as a response.
Determined suicides will choose the most congenial of those methods available to him. If guns are unavailable, other methods will be found. In Japan they regularly jump off mountains and in front of trains.
The results on homicides were a little less clear. Leigh and Neill found that the buyback resulted in a 35 to 50 percent decline in the gun homicide rate, but because of the low number of homicides in Australia normally, this change wasn't statistically significant. Supporters of Australia's policy often argue that no mass shootings have occurred since, which is only true for a certain restrictive definition, as last September a man shot himself, his wife, and their three children in a murder-suicide in rural New South Wales.
There have also been a number of non-gun massacres in the years since the Port Arthur massacre. This past December, a mother in a suburb of Cairns, Queensland, allegedly stabbed to death seven of her own children and one niece. In 2000, a man burned a backpackers' hostel to the ground in Childers, Queensland, killing 15.
But the homicide and mass shooting results are almost beside the point. First thing this author got right.
Nearly two-thirds of gun deaths in the US are suicides. If we can reduce them by 74 percent, we'd be saving more than 15,000 lives every year. That doesn't get us to where most developed countries are, but it gets us in the ballpark of Finland. If you like Finland's ball park, plane tickets are cheap, I hear. The NRA's Wayne LaPierre, a prime reason Australian gun laws could never fly here.
So could it happen in the US? The legal scholars I talked to suggested that an Australia-style program would probably pass muster. If we went further than Australia and also banned handguns, that might cause problems; the Supreme Court struck down Washington, DC's handgun ban in 2008. But Australia's actual system is probably constitutional. A lot of unconstitutional garbage has been signed off by American courts since 1996 (Obamacare and same sex marriage to name but two), so much so, that their approval of laws that fly in the face of the Constitution makes the laws themselves meaningless.
"Courts have consistently upheld bans on military-style semiautomatic rifles because other firearms are equally useful for self-defense," Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA and author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, says. "Gun control isn't stalled because of the Second Amendment. It's stalled because elected officials won't pass effective new laws to reduce gun violence."
Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas Austin and author of the landmark article "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," concurs: "If such an extraordinary law actually got through Congress (meaning with necessary Republican support), then I find it impossible to imagine that there would be five votes on the Court to say no," he says. "But the real problem, of course, is that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of Congress actually passing any meaningful legislation re guns, let alone this kind of quite radical legislation."
And there's the rub. President Obama occasionally cites Australia in discussions about gun control, but proposals he and congressional Democrats have put forward stop far, far short of what Australia's done. Obama's plan to tackle gun violence focuses on universal background checks for gun sales, banning assault weapons again, and increasing criminal penalties for illicit gun traffickers. That's nowhere near as dramatic as taking 20 percent of America's guns off the street. But no more dramatic than the image of the bodies littering the homes of people who try to take those guns.
Australia provides strong evidence that a form of gun control can save lives. But it's a form of gun control that's too dramatic for most mainstream American politicians to embrace.
Background checks aren't enough.
Milder, easier-to-pass changes would probably also save lives. But the effect sizes are, unsurprisingly, smaller, and vary considerably depending on the study you're looking at.
For example, researchers have found that:
After Connecticut passed a law requiring gun purchasers to first obtain a license, gun homicides fell by 40 percent and suicides fell by 15.4 percent. Again, irrelevant. The loss of freedom is a far more important measure than gun registration laws, which are being ignored by gun owners.
When Missouri repealed a similar law, gun homicides increased by 23 percent and suicides increased by 16.1 percent.
Both firearm homicides and overall homicides are lower in states that check for restraining orders (13 percent fewer firearm homicides) and fugitive status (21 percent fewer) before selling guns, and firearm/overall suicides are lower in states that check for fugitive status (5 percent fewer), misdemeanors (5 percent fewer), and mental illness (4 percent fewer). All meaningless because of the loss of basic rights that are supposed to be guaranteed in the Constitution.
The national assault weapons ban did not decrease gun deaths in the US, though if it had existed longer it might have made certain shootings less lethal. The end of the assault weapon ban did meaningfully increase homicides in Mexico.
A Maryland law banning cheap, crummy handguns might have reduced gun homicides, but this effect was offset in part by customers rushing to purchase the guns before the ban took effect.
There are a few promising items there, especially when it comes to gun licensing. But taken together, this doesn't look like an agenda that can get the US to European rates of gun deaths. More drivel using statistics that do not address the loss of personal freedoms and liberty. This comes down to resources. The writer wants to government to take as much as they dare: money, guns and lives in order to help growing the size of government; the loss of liberty means nothing...
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/08/2015 7:39 Comments ||
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#2
One or two Lexington Commons in the 'gun grab' would be followed by numerous Concord Bridges and the whole rotten corrupt system would start to implode. Enough smart pols are still around who understand that.
#3
One variant on the possible gun control laws that I might be able to support is a requirement of a gun safety training certificate (available from a non-government source) as a condition for being able to purchase a (or many) firearm. ONE certificate, as many guns as desired, whenever desired - or none at all.
#5
Glenmore, the obvious cynical response to your comment is; are there any other constitutional ammendments you would consider a training requirement prior to excersing your right? The larger issue is the thrust of this article. Gun control advocates recognize the folly of their "incremental approach".
#6
European levels of gun violence? Europe is where they bring criminal charges against politicians like Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen for telling the truth. Britain won't allow Michael Savage into the country because they don't like his books. But they'll let an army of barbarians from the Middle East to overrun their towns and villages. Screw Europe.
#7
Depot Guy - there are no other Constitutional rights that endanger others by the exercise thereof. As such, it seems a not-unreasonable concession. Now, if you link the training to specific times and guns you create a de facto gun registry, and that is unacceptable.
All that would do is prevent a first time firearm purchaser with too much money from making an impulse purchase.
At the very base level, a person begins thinking about their first firearm when they have to start saving the money to purchase one. Usually they ask around about sizes and qualities with people they know who have experience, so the training is already beginning.
So for free, they have peers, the instruction book which comes with a firearm which goes point by point on how to not be stupid, countless books, and the entire internet.
Need to hear it go bang? There are ranges available if you don't have a buddy with the good land. Need instruction? Many ranges have instructors available if you can't find a private hire.
Hunter safety course is already in operation, as well as programs like Project Appleseed.
#9
Glenmore, I'm of the opinion that the first amendment is more powerful then 2nd and therefore when misused has a greater potential for harm then the second. I also don't disagree with those that suggest that the second amendment is neccessary to protect the former. With that said, I don't find it unreasonable when individual states require training (not a test) to obtain a CC permit.
#10
To get to UK levels, we'd need to reduce gun deaths by nearly 98 percent.
Yeah, the UK has reduced gun deaths by getting rid of guns. Now they have a problem with knife deaths. Go figure! Prolly some economics lesson about substitutable goods and services.
I never thought I would be in the place I am in right now. About two months ago, I was in Oakland at a “Say Her Name” protest and was being detained by about 25 cops in riot gear. I had a text message ready to send to my lawyer that I was about to be arrested. Luckily, myself and other protesters were let go. The next day as I was in my kitchen doing dishes and I began singing the freedom song passed down to our generation by elder community activists, “Which side are you on?”. After organizing and participating in numerous protests, cries for freedom rang through my mind. However, I began to feel hopeless.
After what has felt like endless hours of Black protest and uprising throughout the United States, I felt like our progress was moving in circles. Instead of police killings decreasing in the Bay Area, I witnessed an increase in killings of Black men in Oakland. Five Black men have been executed by in OPD this summer alone. I am tired of waking up and checking Twitter to see another Black body as a hashtag. Our Black Lives Matter protests have stormed the country, yet cops continue to kill us daily, and the judicial system continues to justify our deaths with acquittals, non-indictments, and light sentences-all in the name of upholding the Constitution.
I have come to realize that the Constitution is the root of virtually all our problems in America. In order to understand the injustices against Black folks in United States, we must look back to its foundation. The U.S. is a country that was founded on slavery, genocide, rape, and white male patriarchy. The colonizers that we condemn for enslaving Afikans and murdering indigenous peoples are the same people that produced and upheld the document we use to govern our nation to this day. Our bloodshed is rooted in this nation’s founding document, The Constitution. A body cannot be separated from its head and remain living. The Constitution and all the evil that it allows to be perpetuated are the head of White America, or more so corrupt America. Racist America. If you separate the head then racism will die. This is why it must be a new constitution or the bullet. A new Constitution or the Bullet. You chose a new Constitution. You will have the bullet. The problem is that the author wants more government to be on his side and he wants freedom. You can't have both. It's either freedom or enslavement by government. There is no middle ground here.
This constitution was written for “all men to be equal”, yet these same white men who cried out for equality and freedom from persecution owned Black people as slaves and participated in calculated genocidal tactics against the Black race. In addition, only white men wrote the Constitution. A Constitution written by only white men will never serve the interests of Black people. The Constitution was written for the ruling class of white men which constructed whiteness to be more valuable than any other race. When we discuss institutional racism, it is essential that we realize that the Constitution created it. The Constitution as written provides limits on government, not on people. A government that limits people is a government that should be replaced with one that observes its own limits on its power. The Founders wrote the document that way, but subsequent governments and courts have decided to use their power to wreck any meaning the Constitution has, and destroy any benefit that may derive from limited government. That is not the fault of the Founders, but of the current society, which is Godless and without direction.
The Constitution has created a system of governance that has been executing Black people everyday. From slavery, to sharecropping, to debt peonage, to chain gangs, to gentrification, to the for-profit prison industry that is upheld through the 13th amendment. From Emmett Till, to the four little girls, to Mike Brown, to Rekia Boyd, to Maya Hall, to the Charleston nine, and to Sandra Bland. America has not protected us. On the contrary, it seeks to destroy our very own humanity. We live in a society that is not safe for us. And as the Declaration of Independence says: The courts and the law as constituted is responsible for the civil rights mess this great nation finds itself it. The specific enjoining as to the loss of life or liberty are part and parcel of the Constitution. Ignore the role of government in taking life and property, and you can the blame at how laws are interpreted.
In order for this to be an honest discussion on the limits of government, you must first admit black folks have a problem with each other far more than white folks have with black folks. I have yet to see that discussion.
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
Do we not have the right to abolish the laws that oppress us? It is time to claim the Declaration of Independence and apply it to our struggle as colonized Black people in America. The United States has failed us; it is time we demand a new constitution or tell America that she will get the bullet. White supremacy’s bullets are killing Black people every day. If America does not protect us, then it is our human right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. It is our human right to overthrow a government that has been destructive to our people. This is why we must rise up and let all people come together and write new constitution to serve ALL people. The tag 'white supremacy' is so twisted by today's press it has little real meaning. There's a saying in the south right now: If five Ku Klux Klansmen are meeting on a given day, at least three members will be federal snitches. Your problem is with a bloated government coming for more blood and treasure for itself at the expense of everyone who pays taxes, not with white people.
The idea for a new constitution is not a new idea, rather an old one that was developed by the Black Panther Party. In 1970, the Black Panther Party organized a Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, however, after infiltration by the illegal COINTELPRO the idea never came into fruition. We must pick up where the Black Panthers left off and declare a new constitution or it will be the bullet. You sound like you want a Marxist state. We currently are as far along that road as we have ever been, and yet you want more. You want a Marxist state with whites as slaves to satisfy your lust for revenge and power. 100 million gun owners have other ideas about your goals, and if you keep pressing, about your very future.
If America truly wants to be a nation that values the lives of all people, it has one option, and the option is a National Constitution Convention. This is the last hope America has to become whole. If America fails to allow all people of this nation to write a new constitution, then it will be the bullet. Revolution is inevitable in a society that does not value the lives of all people. The mask slips.
Let the bells of freedom ring…
#1
We don't need a new Constitution. We need to obey the one we have. Of course, I would like to see the U.S. live within our means and set forth limits on how long the political class (Congresscritters) can serve (or help themselves at the trough). The present Constitution, if followed, would prevent SCOTUS from making up the law as it goes along. The 10th Amendment sets out the duties of the States. However, the Feds have usurped much of that.
#3
Wonder what she does for a living and what she buys with her EBT card? Where is that going to come from if white America is gone? Be careful what you wish for dummy!
[NEWS.INVESTORS] In the absence of food, a Venezuelan governor exhorts locals to eat "fried rocks" to defend La Revolucion. It's just socialism's latest lunacy. The greater absurdity is why the likes of Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... still believe in it.
Make no mistake, these idiotic statements are coming out because the country's socialist rulers want that shining utopian faith in socialism to remain, no matter what the reality tells them.
"Let them take away whatever they want. We are capable of eating a stick, or instead of frying two eggs, fry two rocks, and we will eat fried rocks," said Bolivar state Gov. Francisco Rangel, "but no one can beat us."
The PanAm Post dryly noted that his sentiment echoed the faith of the late President Hugo Chavez, who said: "It doesn't matter if we have no clothes to wear, or no food to eat. This is about saving the revolution."
That's why a population can be asked to eat rocks for the revolution, or the current President Maduro can announce, as he did in 2013, that the country's toilet paper shortage is because "Venezuelans are eating more."
The lunacy is all the work of socialism and the absurd measures taken to save it even as it clanks hard against real-world economic forces likes double-entry bookkeeping and running out of other people's money.
Its state controls are why stores are short of basic goods and workers lose 40% of their work day standing in line, but why inflation runs at 150% and stores are besieged by looting with people dying in each food frenzy.
Police dogs now need ration cards for dog food, and prisoners have taken to eating stray cats for dinner.
Babies in hospitals are being killed by germs from opossum -- yes, possums -- infestations, and basic medicines -- and doctors -- are absent.
Have cancer or hemophilia? Good luck.
With the streets awash with crime, the government arrests tweeters who post photos of empty stores to embarrass the government, dubbing it "economic warfare."
Yet amid all these towering lunacies tied to that wretched idea of defending socialism at any cost, the mad belief in socialism lingers in the West.
Socialist Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders still defends this insanity against all the evidence of where it leads, while absurdly claiming to have no identification with Venezuela's sorry story.
He's lying, of course. He praised the Chavista revolution and made a deal for cheap Venezuelan heating oil with Joe Kennedy's Citizen's Energy, on Hugo's dime.
What is it about socialism that socialists don't get?
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
if only they could teach the possums to eat fried rocks instead of infecting babies.
[DAWN] PERSECUTION can be overt at times, subtle and insidious at others; and most people would likely agree that it is an ugly, despicable thing. However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... there is one minority community in Pakistain -- the Ahmadis -- against whom persecution of both kinds not only exists but is celebrated as a virtue by sections of the majority.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistain held a consultative meeting with members of the community on Sunday to explore the issue and perhaps, in the process, attempt to hold up a mirror to society's unconscionable collusion in discrimination against them.
On the occasion, examples were cited from various aspects of life, including educational institutions and the workplace, where they are subjected to humiliation and harassment, as well as in the media -- where hate speech against them may have even incited the murder of some members of the community.
The HRCP panelists recounted Pakistain's legislative history whereby adherents of the minority faith were declared non-Muslim through a constitutional amendment in 1974; that was later followed by Gen Zia ul Haq ...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988... making it a punishable offence for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslim, to refer to their call to prayer as 'azan' or their places of worship as 'masjid'.
The HRCP deserves to be commended for highlighting an issue that the conscience of society has long buried. Years of institutionalised discrimination against the Ahmadi community and its persistent vilification have led to a situation where even the mass murder of its members in Lahore on May 28, 2010 failed to elicit the kind of public outrage that such carnage should have merited -- and has done so in the case of similar attacks on adherents of other minority faiths.
But then, why should one be surprised at such callous indifference when the state, duty-bound to protect the fundamental rights of all its citizens, has left the community's right to religious freedom entirely at the mercy of what the majority considers acceptable?
This carte blanche is best reflected in Section 298-C of the Pakistain Penal Code, which stipulates that an Ahmadi is liable to sanctions if he "in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims": such an open-ended law cannot promote the cause of justice.
Now that there is a realisation that religious intolerance has spawned many of the problems that Pakistain is grappling with today, there must be a resolve to eliminate it in all its forms -- without exception.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2015 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[CNN] The insanity that Donald Trump embodies in his unique dash for the White House became all-too-obvious this past weekend when he suggested that teachers at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, should have been armed and waiting. He complained that this college was "a gun-free zone." At a campaign stop in Tennessee, he added: "Let me tell you, if you had a couple teachers with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off."
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
