Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Doo-Doo Chasers


Now I may not be able to tell you what happened on some cable television program or pontificate of what I think may happen on some contrived artificial reality show, but I am in a position to conjure and offer perspectives on other contrived non-events such as what is frequently called politics. More specifically issues of somewhat basic precepts of democratic centralism and constitutional republics.
 
I have been told by the brain trust in the vicinity of the Beltway that self-determination means nothing anymore, unless it is decided upon by individuals who have no stake on such self-determination. I say this because from the President down, seems that the SEO meter is running on a simple phrase that the referendum in Crimea is illegitimate and illegal, and even that as such, the United States will not (never ever ever ever even) recognize its right to self-determination.

This is not only sociopathic but also inconsistent with the plurality evinced in our own constitution, but even more so in the articles of confederation, the bill of rights as ascribed via the Treaty of Paris.  It is as if just by saying such, it makes it a fact or truism.

Since the PEOPLE of Crimea voted over-whelming for their independence from the Ukraine, every nut and bolt politician in the United States has been saying the same thing, which can be summed up by the statement made by Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, who openly informed the world that the Obama Administration would not recognize the results of the referendum in Crimea calling what Russia did as being “dangerous and destabilizing”. Thus by fiat extending the assertion that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a democratic referendum via the ballot, to decide if it wants to remain with the Ukraine or join Russia.

Fascinating, I mean a constitutional scholar (in theory) asserting anti-constitutional beliefs. This when, if it wasn’t for Washington, and even the EU helping to overthrow a democratically elected leader of another sovereign nation (Ukraine), we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Moreover, what makes even more absurd in the logic offered for this position by the Obama administration, which for the record asserts that the referendum cannot be valid unless the entire population of Ukraine votes and agrees with the decision by Crimean’s. A funny and strange position to take when you study past U.S. history with respect to the South Sudan (all of Sudan didn’t vote) and Kosovo from Serbia (no Serbians were allowed to vote via U.S. dictate). 

Then we have the audacity (like hope) to ridicule Putin for what Bill Clinton did in in Serbia, Bush in Iraq, and by Obama in Afghanistan, Libya, and trying to do currently in Syria. Were we this up set in 1967 when Israel committed a real act of war when it took Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Jordanian-administered West Bank, or in 1981 when the same nation, Israel took the Golan Heights.  

The simple fact of the matter is that we, America, should mind our own business and tend to the home front where we have real interest and not just the plutocratic interest of the ultra-wealthy. From a historical perspective WE KNOW that the two elephants in the room that no one is really discussing are: (1) the historical US/NATO desire to be able to surround Russia militarily and (2) access to the Artic, in particular since all these international bodies being so concerned with ‘global warming”, have green lighted more drilling there. These folks have to contain the Russian military because it will be the only way they can try and get all of the natural gas it has as well as access the infinite northern border Russia has with the Arctic.
Again, the United States has no interest that is national in the Ukraine when compared to Russia. Not only do the Russians have a large naval facility in Crimea, the folk there do speak Russian and it was conquered originally by Catherine the Great. Moreover, Moscow is not about to invade Ukraine and we all know this, it just sounds good to make folk believe that should be a reason for us to be upset. Outside of that, what is our national interest in the Ukraine? Is it to spread democracy like we did in Libya and Somalia? I mean fact is where ever we try to spread democracy all we get is a lot of dead Americans, a destabilized nation, and large Blackwater contracts.

We should just stay out of this and admit our only goal is really western control of oil and gas in the region. The Crimean Supreme Council is already on record saying Crimea wants Gazprom to develop the peninsula's oil and natural gas deposits and not any western (US company).

This time we have messed with the wrong cat, a cat from a nation with conviction, who has very strong leadership skills, and even more than this REAL national interest in the region.  This is aint no doo doo chaser, this is Putin.


Monday, March 17, 2014

The Beyoncé Effect and the Re-Negrofication of Black America



Recently I have been thinking, that I am glad South African apartheid was gone before Alicia Keyes, Rihanna & Beyoncé were born because I really believe that they would have performed there just to get a check.  Now I am not holding the aforementioned to the platitudes of others like Stevie Wonder or an AliceWalker or MayaAngelou, who in their youth and currently were more conscious and global than the three cited previously, but I am questioning how lost one has to be to take a stance against nations and regimes that treat people like cattle?

 
Recently I just learned that Beyoncé has just informed the world that she will be performing in Israel in this year on June 15. Now I am certain that many who have been hammered and for lack of a better word Beyonceified, do not see this as a big deal.  But I would also speculate that the same folk were not even around let alone born when Apartheid was alive and well in South Africa.

We should all be aware of the issues that presently and historically confront Palestinians, in particular children whom are frequently used as targets while walking to school by West Bank settlers and the Israeli military.  This I hope is a given, but what I am more concerned with, which is rarely addressed, is the manner in which Blacks and Africans are treated in Israel.

Over the past few years, the Israel government, under the panoply of Zionism and the desire for a pure Jewish state, have been rounding up Africans and placing them in detention camps they way Hitler rounded up Jews and placed them in concentration camps. The only reason why, is because they are black and Africa and politicians openly state this to the public. The official policy is to treat them as animals in the exact same fashion South African Whites treated blacks during apartheid and this is not an over statement. This short film can show you in images what my words will never be able to convey.


Africans in Israel are frequently attacked violently in the streets of Israel and there homes, apartments and businesses are often the targets of arson and fire bombings, just like blacks were targeted in the South in the United States during the 1960s. But the Israel government even takes it back to the way in which the United States treated many black women and force sterilize African women in Israel today without their knowledge or permission. Just a few weeks ago, CCTV recorded an Assailant caught beating an African refugee at Tel Aviv port for no apparent reason.

I would go on, but my goal is not to belabor but rather question how could a person not realize that playing in Israel is giving tacit support and approval to an apartheid regime, the same way such was during Apartheid in South Africa?  I really do wonder what many of the entertainers of this generation think (if they think at all) about what they do and what their actions represent. Whether it is Nicki Minaj defacing Malcom X or Lil Wayne denigrating Emmett Till, or Yo Gotti taking the classic ‘I AM A MAN” sign used in the Memphis garbage strikes in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and changing it to “I AM A GANGSTER.”


Albeit consequential, I have decided to call this the Beyoncé effect. She is no different than any of the other examples have mentioned, it just so happen she is the latest to show her ignorance regarding how blacks outside of New York and Houston are being treated today. It is this Beyoncé effect, in my opinion that is causing the re-Negrofication of Black America. And by re-Negrofication I mean the dumbing down of a community to the extent where being informed, well read and supportive of proactive self-determination is a worthless morality when compared to the dollar bill. Re-negrofication takes effort because as Benjamin Franklin said, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."  


Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Again or Still? Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya

Seems like there is rarely a mention of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya in the mainstream news anymore, and more importantly, from the oral cavities of U.S. politicians. Maybe we might hear about the occasional bombing that happens in Iraq each day nationally since U.S. forces invaded the country and left, in particular in Sunni dominated areas, to live along side al Qaeda just to survive, or a word or two from a lame-brained republican about Benghazi, but really that is about it.

I am even more assured that we will not hear about Afghanistan (with the exception of their lunatic of a President Hamid Karzai) or Libya. In particular from the hawkish John McCain, Lindsey Graham and more exacting, from the lips of President Obama.  Especially now with the feces hitting the proverbial Ukrainian fan.
America is really in a leadership, or even more basically, hand-holding vacuum.  See real leaders, or better yet statesmen can walk the walk while holding the hands of folks who require baby steps to make any progress on anything. In Iraq for example, it is coming to pieces, it may be three or even four states by time all the smoke clears. Last year alone, more than 10,000 people died, and most likely many more. And just in the first month of 2014 alone, more than 1000 Iraqis were killed in car and suicide bombings, most of which were civilians.

If we were hearing about Iraq, we would be reminded of how we meddle into affairs that were not ours, on a completely other side of the globe and which we leave in shabbles. If Obama or the media mentioned Iraq, they would have to show how the al Qaeda group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has taken over the region, a region were al Qaeda never existed be for the U.S. Invasion and occupation of Iraq. Or how refugees from the Western part of Iraq and in the Anbar provinceare making fast motion to become refugees in Jordan. Or even worse, how the man we installed as Prime Minister (Nouri al-Maliki) has provided no service to Sunnis, made them focus of attacks, and used government troops to squash any open and “democratic” protest against his government. Now unbelievably, Sunni side with ISIS against another U.S. backed regime. And Libya is definetly out of the question with the Islamic extremist being in control of ALL the oil and even shipping it to North Korea. And God forbid i mention that the Libyian Parliment ousted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan out of office Tuesday. 

Now back to Ukraine, am I the only one that considers the hypocrisy of U.S. Foreign policy with respect to the rhetoric hurled towards Russia?  If my history is correct, the only nation I recall Russia, since the break-up that is going to war with was Georgia in 2008.  For Obama to say that Russia needs to respect the borders of sovereign nations is kind of lames, and like someone not living in my home telling me what to cook: given the U.S. has had at least four wars (all undeclared) with Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and currently bomb without any respect of “territorial integrity” to use the words of Secretary of State John Kerry of places like, Yemen, Somalia, Kosovo, Serbia Bolivia and you name it.

It is even more ironic when one includes U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (wife of Robert Kagan), be caught and recorded telling the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine which leaders of the Ukrainian coup should be placed in a new government and which ones should not when she quipped, “Fuck the EU.” How is it that a simple statement is considered more news worthy than the content of her telling a “sovereign” nation to put who the U.S. want in office and not the people of said nation?
Even to consider the Ukraine as a ground for the start of a “liberal democracy” is ridiculous, when we all know it will only become a western puppet nation run by feudal oligarchical landlords. Not to mention everybody seems to forget that if the EU and America were not sitting on their hands, they would have been able to have played a role other than watching the game from their living room sofa’s.

U.S. hypocrisy regarding the Ukraine is shameful and beyond ridiculous. We say or Describe Putin as being like Hitler (Hillary Clinton’s historical inaccuracy) yet taking U.S. tax payer money to the tune of $1 billion to send to a government filled with nationalist fascist yet they don’t have any money to spend on behalf of American job seekers. We say it is anti-democratic and wrong for people to desire and practice self-determination in the Crimea but ok for all else in Egypt, Libya and Syria. Which suggest according to this Administration and the many before him, self-determination is only cool when it serves the U.S. and no one else? We all know that it was Obama that described the desire of the Crimean people to vote, and want to vote on their future as “undemocratic” and “illegitimate.”

But none of this won’t be told or mentioned by our government or news media. The reality is if they did bring up Syria, or Libya, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, out hypocrisy would be on the red carpet for all to watch and document and equal to them shooting themselves in the foot..

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Putin Seahawks versus the Obama Broncos

If I may, I would like to explain the terse yet strange relationship between President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. To use a basic football analogy, like the Seahawks, Putin has scored on his first five possessions: Syria and Assad, Edward Snowden, Sochi Olympic with no overt terrorism, China and recently the Ukraine.

Now I know many will say that Obama’s pre-democratic party happy hour cocktail party was or sent a strong message to Putin, but in reality, his words are like mythology of the U.S. criminal justice system which asserts that everyone is treated equally, regardless of race or class

First, the United States need Russia more economically than Russia needs the United States. Russia is the world’s largest supplier of Iron ore, coal, and maybe even fish. Not to mention that in general, Russia is the largest mineral supplier and has more than twenty percent of the world’s oil and more than fifteen percent of the world’s coal. I would add that they also have more than 20 percent of the world’s timber and nickel as well, and I won’t even mention Zinc, or natural gas (did I do that?). Because when you really have a trump card to play economically, it would be natural gas.  Russia supplies most of the Natural gas to Europe and if they decided to cut it off, it would be a big problem for European industry, which happens to be America’s largest trading partner. Even if Russia doesn’t cut off the gas, folk in the Central Ukraine might, which still manifest in the same result.

Putin has masterfully played Obama’s weakness and shown the world how empty his rhetoric is. No US propaganda spouted from main stream media can undo this. While Obama speaks of respecting the sovereign boarders of independent nations, he does the opposite in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and Pakistan. Thus any credibility in his oratory pertaining to the Ukraine is disingenuous.

In Syria, Obama has thrown his support behind Al Qaeda against the will and majority of the Syrian people and in Ukraine; he has thrown his support being mostly fascist neo-Nazis. It is well documented that most of the key positions in the newly formed Ukrainian government have been given to neo-Nazis via the tacit financial support of the United Sates government. I mean ask yourself, who comprises the Svoboda political party?  Then, most of the popular protest openly is against what Obama is for politically.  The  demands of the Ukranian people in Kiev are anti-abortion, anti-welfare, closed immigration, “ethnic mongrolization”, homosexuality and abortion. Yes, Obama has thrown his backing behind the largest population of ultra-nationalist, fascist, and racist in Europe who don’t even support his progressive belief orientation.

Now on the day that I am about write and post this essay, we find out Putin has sent as many as 6000 troops to the Crimea and earlier on Saturday, the speaker of the Russian State Duma Council Valentina Matvienko supported his actions. Elsewhere China has filed a case against Ukraine at the London Court of International Arbitration for US$3 billion from Ukraine for the breach of a loans-for-grain contract signed in 2012. Plus, the Swiss financial regulator FINMA, has started a money-laundering investigation into ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Truth be told, in my ignorant opinion, the Ukraine , like Syria is a no win situation. In fact it may evince to be 1853 all over again. And we all know what that means.