Sankofa writes.......
In the focus of "Health Day" Blacks need to be a little more aware of heath issue's. Also, information that can alleviate the stress of not knowing what they dealing with and where to find help.
I can remember watching the news one evening where this older man children went on one of the sites, posted there about needing a matching kidney. Do you know what? This man received it from someone that frequent the site. Truly amazing, after a number of years his family searched and decided to try the net.
This is a good venue to a much more knowledge where to receive one.
It would be a beautiful thing if we would try to focus more on the health issues that affect us personally.
em-Hotep*
-------------
Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant
Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success
(HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found.
"Research overwhelmingly indicates that African-Americans are less likely to successfully get kidney transplants, even allowing for differences in socioeconomic and insurance status and patient preference," Teri Browne, of the University of South Carolina, said in a National Kidney Foundation news release.
The survey, by Browne and colleagues, found that more than 90 percent of the 228 blacks with kidney failure who were surveyed wanted a transplant and had insurance that would pay for the procedure. But those who gathered information from dialysis teams and social networks were nearly twice as likely to get an appointment at a transplant center, which improves the likelihood of their being placed on the transplant list.
Networking with others that have been through it already can give you more info and experience their exprience shed more light.
The study was to be presented at the Kidney Foundation's spring clinical meetings, in Nashville, Tenn.
"In regards to kidney transplant, an effective social network is made up of people who have had a kidney transplant themselves or know of someone who did," Browne said. "That way, they have information about how to get one. We know that getting a transplant is not an easy process and requires much follow-up on the patient's part and may be confusing."
Browne said that because rules from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stipulate that dialysis centers must have interdisciplinary teams in place for every patient, "social workers and other team members can incorporate relevant interventions to help patients remove barriers to getting a kidney transplant."
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney transplant .
Related News
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Keeping Your Brain Fit
Good Parents, Bad Results
America's Best Hospitals
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Diabetes, if unchecked, can lead to very serious conditions such as kidney problems, blindness, and amputations.
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Read more Health Advice
AFROCENTRIC NEWS PORTAL
Until the Lion tells His Own story, the tale of the Hunt will Always Glorify the Hunter.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Health Day: Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need KidneyTransplant
Sankofa writes.......
In the focus of "Health Day" Blacks need to be a little more aware of heath issue's. Also, information that can alleviate the strss of not knowing what they dealing with and where to find help.
I can remember watching the news one evening where this older man children went on on of the sites posted there were in bneed of a matching kidney. Do you know what? This man received from someone that frequent the site. Truly amazing after a number of years his family searched and decided to try the net.
This is a good venue to a much more knowledge where to receive one.
It would be a beautiful thing if we would try to focus more on the health issues that affect us personally.
em-Hotep*
-------------
Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant
Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success
(HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found.
"Research overwhelmingly indicates that African-Americans are less likely to successfully get kidney transplants, even allowing for differences in socioeconomic and insurance status and patient preference," Teri Browne, of the University of South Carolina, said in a National Kidney Foundation news release.
The survey, by Browne and colleagues, found that more than 90 percent of the 228 blacks with kidney failure who were surveyed wanted a transplant and had insurance that would pay for the procedure. But those who gathered information from dialysis teams and social networks were nearly twice as likely to get an appointment at a transplant center, which improves the likelihood of their being placed on the transplant list.
Networking with others that have been through it already can give you more info and experience their exprience shed more light.
The study was to be presented at the Kidney Foundation's spring clinical meetings, in Nashville, Tenn.
"In regards to kidney transplant, an effective social network is made up of people who have had a kidney transplant themselves or know of someone who did," Browne said. "That way, they have information about how to get one. We know that getting a transplant is not an easy process and requires much follow-up on the patient's part and may be confusing."
Browne said that because rules from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stipulate that dialysis centers must have interdisciplinary teams in place for every patient, "social workers and other team members can incorporate relevant interventions to help patients remove barriers to getting a kidney transplant."
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney transplant .
Related News
Diets That Promote Health
Keeping Your Brain Fit
Good Parents, Bad Results
America's Best Hospitals
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How Much Should Women Drink? It Depends on Who You Ask
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Featured Video
Birth Control Methods
Learn about condoms, diaphragms, and other barrier methods of birth control.
Taking a Skin Self-Exam
A step-by-step demonstration of how to look for the warning signs of cancer.
What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes, if unchecked, can lead to very serious conditions such as kidney problems, blindness, and amputations.
Cancer Treatments
There is a wide range of treatments to help you fight your cancer.
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From grilling recipes to making the right choice at the grocery store
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Health Buzz: American Medical Association Sues WellPoint and Other Health News
advertisement
Our panel of experts weighs in on your health concerns. Ask one of our experts a question here .
Read more Health Advice
In the focus of "Health Day" Blacks need to be a little more aware of heath issue's. Also, information that can alleviate the strss of not knowing what they dealing with and where to find help.
I can remember watching the news one evening where this older man children went on on of the sites posted there were in bneed of a matching kidney. Do you know what? This man received from someone that frequent the site. Truly amazing after a number of years his family searched and decided to try the net.
This is a good venue to a much more knowledge where to receive one.
It would be a beautiful thing if we would try to focus more on the health issues that affect us personally.
em-Hotep*
-------------
Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant
Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success
(HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found.
"Research overwhelmingly indicates that African-Americans are less likely to successfully get kidney transplants, even allowing for differences in socioeconomic and insurance status and patient preference," Teri Browne, of the University of South Carolina, said in a National Kidney Foundation news release.
The survey, by Browne and colleagues, found that more than 90 percent of the 228 blacks with kidney failure who were surveyed wanted a transplant and had insurance that would pay for the procedure. But those who gathered information from dialysis teams and social networks were nearly twice as likely to get an appointment at a transplant center, which improves the likelihood of their being placed on the transplant list.
Networking with others that have been through it already can give you more info and experience their exprience shed more light.
The study was to be presented at the Kidney Foundation's spring clinical meetings, in Nashville, Tenn.
"In regards to kidney transplant, an effective social network is made up of people who have had a kidney transplant themselves or know of someone who did," Browne said. "That way, they have information about how to get one. We know that getting a transplant is not an easy process and requires much follow-up on the patient's part and may be confusing."
Browne said that because rules from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stipulate that dialysis centers must have interdisciplinary teams in place for every patient, "social workers and other team members can incorporate relevant interventions to help patients remove barriers to getting a kidney transplant."
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney transplant .
Related News
Diets That Promote Health
Keeping Your Brain Fit
Good Parents, Bad Results
America's Best Hospitals
Health News From HealthDay
Third of EMS Stethoscopes Carry MRSA Virus
How Much Should Women Drink? It Depends on Who You Ask
Baby's Sleep Position May Not Affect Severity of Head Flattening
Scientists Capture HIV Transfer Among T-Cells on Video
Microsurgery May Cut Swelling After Breast Cancer Treatment
More Headlines From HealthDay
Featured Video
Birth Control Methods
Learn about condoms, diaphragms, and other barrier methods of birth control.
Taking a Skin Self-Exam
A step-by-step demonstration of how to look for the warning signs of cancer.
What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes, if unchecked, can lead to very serious conditions such as kidney problems, blindness, and amputations.
Cancer Treatments
There is a wide range of treatments to help you fight your cancer.
Understanding Chemotherapy
Learn why chemotherapy often plays a large part in cancer treatment.
Healthy Eating
From grilling recipes to making the right choice at the grocery store
advertisement
Health Features from U.S. News
ADHD Drugs Don't Help Children Long Term
Fitness Buzz: Caffeine, Beef, and More
Health Buzz: Hot Tea and Throat Cancer, and Other Health News
Why Women Should Favor Circumcision: To Prevent HPV Infection
New iPhone App Could Monitor Glucose Levels Remotely
Health Buzz: American Medical Association Sues WellPoint and Other Health News
advertisement
Our panel of experts weighs in on your health concerns. Ask one of our experts a question here .
Read more Health Advice
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Pioneering Historian John Hope Franklin dies at 94
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U.S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.
David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school's hospital in Durham.
Born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma where he was often subjected to humiliating racism, Franklin was later instrumental in bringing down the legal and historical validations of such a world.
As an author, his book "From Slavery to Freedom" was a landmark integration of black history into American history that remains relevant more than 60 years after being published. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that barred the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the nation's public schools.
"It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer," Franklin later wrote. "For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating."
Franklin himself broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.
He often regarded his country like an exasperated relative, frustrated by racism's stubborn power, yet refusing to give up. "I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live," Franklin told The Associated Press in 2005.
In November, after Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier in American politics, Franklin called his ascension to the White House "one of the most historic moments, if not the most historic moment, in the history of this country."
"Because of the life John Hope Franklin lived, the public service he rendered, and the scholarship that was the mark of his distinguished career, we all have a richer understanding of who we are as Americans and our journey as a people," Obama said in a statement. "Dr. Franklin will be deeply missed, but his legacy is one that will surely endure."
Obama's achievement fit with Franklin's mission as a historian, to document how blacks lived and served alongside whites from the nation's birth. Black patriots fought at Lexington and Concord, Franklin pointed out in "From Slavery to Freedom," published in 1947. They crossed the Delaware with Washington and explored with Lewis and Clark.
The book sold more than 3.5 million copies and remains required reading in college classrooms. It was based on research Franklin conducted in libraries and archives that didn't allow him to eat lunch or use the bathroom because he was black.
"He was working in a profession that more or less banned him at the outset and ended up its leading practitioner," said Tim Tyson, a history professor at Duke. "And yet, he always managed to keep his grace and his sense of humor."
Late in life, Franklin received more than 130 honorary degrees and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Spingarn Award. In 1993, President Bill Clinton honored Franklin with the Charles Frankel Prize, recognizing scholarly contributions that give "eloquence and meaning ... to our ideas, hopes and dreams as American citizens."
Clinton awarded Franklin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian prize, two years later, and gave him the role for which he was perhaps best known outside academia, as chairman of Clinton's Initiative on Race. It was a job of which Franklin said, "I am not sure this is an honor. It may be a burden."
As he aged, Franklin spent more time in the greenhouse behind his home, where he nursed orchids, than in libraries. He fell in love with the flowers because "they're full of challenges, mystery" — the same reasons he fell in love with history.
In June, Franklin had a small role in the movie based on the book "Blood Done Signed My Name," about the public slaying of black man in Oxford in 1970. Tyson, the book's author, said at the time he wanted Franklin in the movie "because of his dignity and his shining intelligence."
Franklin attended historically black Fisk University, where he met Aurelia Whittington, who would be his wife, editor, helpmate and rock for 58 years, until her death in 1999. He planned to follow his father into law, but the lively lectures of a white professor, Ted Currier, convinced him history was his field. Currier borrowed $500 to send Franklin to Harvard University for graduate studies.
Franklin's doctoral thesis was on free blacks in antebellum North Carolina. His wife spent part of their honeymoon in Washington, D.C., at the Census Bureau, helping him finish. The resulting work, "The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860," earned Franklin his doctorate and, in 1943, became his first published book. Four years later, he took a job at Howard University. It was the same year "From Slavery to Freedom" was published.
Some of his greatest moments of triumph were marred by bigotry.
His joy at being offered the chair of the Brooklyn College history department in 1956 was tempered by his difficulty getting a loan to buy a house in a "white" neighborhood.
When he was to receive the freedom medal, Franklin hosted a party for some friends at Washington's Cosmos Club, of which he had long been a member. A white woman walked up to him, handed him a slip of paper and demanded that he get her coat. He politely told the woman that any of the uniformed attendants, "and they were all in uniform," would be happy to assist her.
Franklin was born Jan. 2, 1915, in the all-black town of Rentiesville, Okla., where his parents moved in the mistaken belief that separation from whites would mean a better life for their young family. But his father's law office was burned in the race riots in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, along with the rest of the black section of town.
His mother, Mollie, a teacher, began taking him to school with her when he was 3. He could read and write by 5; by 6, he first became aware of the "racial divide separating me from white America."
Franklin, his mother and sister Anne were ejected from a train when his mother refused the conductor's orders to move to the overcrowded "Negro" coach. As they trudged through the woods back to Rentiesville, young John Hope began to cry.
His mother pulled him aside and told him, "There was not a white person on that train or anywhere else who was any better than I was. She admonished me not to waste my energy by fretting but to save it in order to prove that I was as good as any of them."
On the Net:
Duke University's John Hope Franklin Web site: http://www.duke.edu/johnhopefranklin
America loses its pre-eminent black historian Brisbane Times - 2 hours ago
Pioneer black historian gave meaning to past
Chicago Sun-Times - 5 hours ago
Historian John Hope Franklin, 94; chronicled South
Arizona Republic - 8 hours ago
The Historian Who Lived What He Taught
Washington Post - 10 hours ago
In this July 1997 file photo, Duke University historian and African-American scholar John Hope Franklin talks to the press following his speech to a joint session of the legislature in Raleigh, N.C. Franklin died Wednesday, March 25, 2009, at the age of 94. (AP Photo/Karen Tam)
R.I.P. Brother historian John Hope Franklin
David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school's hospital in Durham.
Born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma where he was often subjected to humiliating racism, Franklin was later instrumental in bringing down the legal and historical validations of such a world.
As an author, his book "From Slavery to Freedom" was a landmark integration of black history into American history that remains relevant more than 60 years after being published. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that barred the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the nation's public schools.
"It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer," Franklin later wrote. "For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating."
Franklin himself broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.
He often regarded his country like an exasperated relative, frustrated by racism's stubborn power, yet refusing to give up. "I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live," Franklin told The Associated Press in 2005.
In November, after Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier in American politics, Franklin called his ascension to the White House "one of the most historic moments, if not the most historic moment, in the history of this country."
"Because of the life John Hope Franklin lived, the public service he rendered, and the scholarship that was the mark of his distinguished career, we all have a richer understanding of who we are as Americans and our journey as a people," Obama said in a statement. "Dr. Franklin will be deeply missed, but his legacy is one that will surely endure."
Obama's achievement fit with Franklin's mission as a historian, to document how blacks lived and served alongside whites from the nation's birth. Black patriots fought at Lexington and Concord, Franklin pointed out in "From Slavery to Freedom," published in 1947. They crossed the Delaware with Washington and explored with Lewis and Clark.
The book sold more than 3.5 million copies and remains required reading in college classrooms. It was based on research Franklin conducted in libraries and archives that didn't allow him to eat lunch or use the bathroom because he was black.
"He was working in a profession that more or less banned him at the outset and ended up its leading practitioner," said Tim Tyson, a history professor at Duke. "And yet, he always managed to keep his grace and his sense of humor."
Late in life, Franklin received more than 130 honorary degrees and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Spingarn Award. In 1993, President Bill Clinton honored Franklin with the Charles Frankel Prize, recognizing scholarly contributions that give "eloquence and meaning ... to our ideas, hopes and dreams as American citizens."
Clinton awarded Franklin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian prize, two years later, and gave him the role for which he was perhaps best known outside academia, as chairman of Clinton's Initiative on Race. It was a job of which Franklin said, "I am not sure this is an honor. It may be a burden."
As he aged, Franklin spent more time in the greenhouse behind his home, where he nursed orchids, than in libraries. He fell in love with the flowers because "they're full of challenges, mystery" — the same reasons he fell in love with history.
In June, Franklin had a small role in the movie based on the book "Blood Done Signed My Name," about the public slaying of black man in Oxford in 1970. Tyson, the book's author, said at the time he wanted Franklin in the movie "because of his dignity and his shining intelligence."
Franklin attended historically black Fisk University, where he met Aurelia Whittington, who would be his wife, editor, helpmate and rock for 58 years, until her death in 1999. He planned to follow his father into law, but the lively lectures of a white professor, Ted Currier, convinced him history was his field. Currier borrowed $500 to send Franklin to Harvard University for graduate studies.
Franklin's doctoral thesis was on free blacks in antebellum North Carolina. His wife spent part of their honeymoon in Washington, D.C., at the Census Bureau, helping him finish. The resulting work, "The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860," earned Franklin his doctorate and, in 1943, became his first published book. Four years later, he took a job at Howard University. It was the same year "From Slavery to Freedom" was published.
Some of his greatest moments of triumph were marred by bigotry.
His joy at being offered the chair of the Brooklyn College history department in 1956 was tempered by his difficulty getting a loan to buy a house in a "white" neighborhood.
When he was to receive the freedom medal, Franklin hosted a party for some friends at Washington's Cosmos Club, of which he had long been a member. A white woman walked up to him, handed him a slip of paper and demanded that he get her coat. He politely told the woman that any of the uniformed attendants, "and they were all in uniform," would be happy to assist her.
Franklin was born Jan. 2, 1915, in the all-black town of Rentiesville, Okla., where his parents moved in the mistaken belief that separation from whites would mean a better life for their young family. But his father's law office was burned in the race riots in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, along with the rest of the black section of town.
His mother, Mollie, a teacher, began taking him to school with her when he was 3. He could read and write by 5; by 6, he first became aware of the "racial divide separating me from white America."
Franklin, his mother and sister Anne were ejected from a train when his mother refused the conductor's orders to move to the overcrowded "Negro" coach. As they trudged through the woods back to Rentiesville, young John Hope began to cry.
His mother pulled him aside and told him, "There was not a white person on that train or anywhere else who was any better than I was. She admonished me not to waste my energy by fretting but to save it in order to prove that I was as good as any of them."
On the Net:
Duke University's John Hope Franklin Web site: http://www.duke.edu/johnhopefranklin
America loses its pre-eminent black historian Brisbane Times - 2 hours ago
Pioneer black historian gave meaning to past
Chicago Sun-Times - 5 hours ago
Historian John Hope Franklin, 94; chronicled South
Arizona Republic - 8 hours ago
The Historian Who Lived What He Taught
Washington Post - 10 hours ago
In this July 1997 file photo, Duke University historian and African-American scholar John Hope Franklin talks to the press following his speech to a joint session of the legislature in Raleigh, N.C. Franklin died Wednesday, March 25, 2009, at the age of 94. (AP Photo/Karen Tam)
R.I.P. Brother historian John Hope Franklin
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Obama lobbies at Capitol-Democrat's on budget
Spirit of Sankofa writes........
Obama is one Hard Working President! However, he doesn't get half the credit that he deserves! Obama has inherited thisTrillion dollar budget, and the republicans nick pick and critique everything. They want him to turn water into wine within a (100 days) in office. "Unbelievable" Guess what? It's their fault the country is in the state it's in right now.
He made it clear, that he realizes everyone will not agree with everything. However, if we could put away childish ways...and seek what's important to the fabric of this country, then we can begin to move forward in the right direction.
Cheers, to President elect Obama for handling the curved ball thrown to him last night. I applaud his response on the "race" question. He let that reporter and the world know, He has been much to busy to focus at this time on "race" when people are loosing their jobs etc... I stand with him now is now is not the time.
Keep your head up Mr. President your doing awesome for such a short time in office!
Remember, keep your. Head up, many are pulling for you.
May you and your family be blessed!
Spirit of Sankofa*
-------------
Obama goes to Capitol to lobby Democrats on budget
WASHINGTON (CNN)
President Obama huddled with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the White House fought to save major domestic priorities in its record $3.6 trillion budget from the congressional budget ax.
Key budget votes are expected in the Senate and House later this week.
Obama's visit to the Hill came shortly after Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, trimmed the president's proposal in response to congressional projections showing larger-than-expected budget deficits over the next several years.
Obama has pledged to cut the deficit in half within five years.
"We had a very comfortable meeting with President Obama," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "He made us all feel content and inspired by where we need to go."
Reid said he is confident the full Senate will pass Conrad's version of the budget next week.
Conrad said he had preserved the president's major initiatives in education, energy and health-care reform in the wake of "new realities" on finances without sacrificing the administration's deficit reduction goals.
Multiple senators said the Democrats' meeting with Obama was cordial, and that the president said he understood that the budget process would require compromise on all sides.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said the most pointed questions Obama got were about how he can undertake large initiatives in energy and health care reform during difficult economic times.
Obama repeated an argument he has made in recent weeks, saying that smarter investments in core priorities now will ultimately help control costs later. The president said initiatives such as health reform and economic reform are linked, according to Wyden.
"He reiterated what he said before," Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh told reporters. Namely, that "he never had [any] expectation that the budget would be rubber stamped ... and he fully expected members of the Senate to come forward with their ideas about how to improve the process."
Conrad and other centrist Democratic senators, whose support is critical to passing the legislation, had raised concerns about the long-term impact of the president's spending plan on the federal deficit.
In a letter to the Senate Budget Committee dated Tuesday, 12 of the 16 members of the centrist Senate Democratic coalition, which calls itself "the moderate Dems Working Group," expressed concerns about the direction of the president's $3.6 trillion budget.
The lawmakers noted the Congressional Budget Office's projection of a cumulative deficit over the next 10 years of $9.3 trillion, "roughly $2.3 trillion higher than the president's budget had assumed."
While acknowledging the economic and fiscal distress the Obama administration has inherited, the 12 moderates said the deficit projections "are not acceptable."
The senators who signed the letter were: Bayh, Landrieu, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska. Sen. Joe Lieberman, formerly a Democrat and now an independent from Connecticut, also signed the letter.
Publicly, the administration has tried to minimize differences between Obama's budget proposal and changes sought by congressional Democrats.
The "House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities for the budget," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said in a conference call Wednesday morning.
"There have been some changes made ... but they are 98 percent the same as the budget the president sent up in February."
Obama, in a news conference on Tuesday, defended his budget, saying the plan he proposed is "inseparable" from the overall strategy for economic recovery.
Obama brushed off those skeptical of the scope of his investments, saying, "We haven't seen an alternative budget out of them."
Republicans, who blasted the Obama budget proposal because it "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much," according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have also criticized Conrad's proposal because some of the items Conrad stripped from the spending blueprint might have to be funded anyway.
For example, Conrad's budget strikes Obama's proposal to set aside $250 billion in case more money is needed for the financial sector rescue, an aide said.
Conrad's budget also curtails Obama's fix of the costly alternative minimum tax and doesn't account for increased payments for doctors who care for Medicare recipients, said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee.
"You can get these presidential numbers down by using a lot of gimmicks that the president didn't use. That would be a mistake. Let's be honest with the Americans," Gregg said Tuesday.
"It's certainly not a gimmick," Conrad responded Tuesday. "We faced up to changes."
Obama is one Hard Working President! However, he doesn't get half the credit that he deserves! Obama has inherited thisTrillion dollar budget, and the republicans nick pick and critique everything. They want him to turn water into wine within a (100 days) in office. "Unbelievable" Guess what? It's their fault the country is in the state it's in right now.
He made it clear, that he realizes everyone will not agree with everything. However, if we could put away childish ways...and seek what's important to the fabric of this country, then we can begin to move forward in the right direction.
Cheers, to President elect Obama for handling the curved ball thrown to him last night. I applaud his response on the "race" question. He let that reporter and the world know, He has been much to busy to focus at this time on "race" when people are loosing their jobs etc... I stand with him now is now is not the time.
Keep your head up Mr. President your doing awesome for such a short time in office!
Remember, keep your. Head up, many are pulling for you.
May you and your family be blessed!
Spirit of Sankofa*
-------------
Obama goes to Capitol to lobby Democrats on budget
WASHINGTON (CNN)
President Obama huddled with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the White House fought to save major domestic priorities in its record $3.6 trillion budget from the congressional budget ax.
Key budget votes are expected in the Senate and House later this week.
Obama's visit to the Hill came shortly after Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, trimmed the president's proposal in response to congressional projections showing larger-than-expected budget deficits over the next several years.
Obama has pledged to cut the deficit in half within five years.
"We had a very comfortable meeting with President Obama," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "He made us all feel content and inspired by where we need to go."
Reid said he is confident the full Senate will pass Conrad's version of the budget next week.
Conrad said he had preserved the president's major initiatives in education, energy and health-care reform in the wake of "new realities" on finances without sacrificing the administration's deficit reduction goals.
Multiple senators said the Democrats' meeting with Obama was cordial, and that the president said he understood that the budget process would require compromise on all sides.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said the most pointed questions Obama got were about how he can undertake large initiatives in energy and health care reform during difficult economic times.
Obama repeated an argument he has made in recent weeks, saying that smarter investments in core priorities now will ultimately help control costs later. The president said initiatives such as health reform and economic reform are linked, according to Wyden.
"He reiterated what he said before," Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh told reporters. Namely, that "he never had [any] expectation that the budget would be rubber stamped ... and he fully expected members of the Senate to come forward with their ideas about how to improve the process."
Conrad and other centrist Democratic senators, whose support is critical to passing the legislation, had raised concerns about the long-term impact of the president's spending plan on the federal deficit.
In a letter to the Senate Budget Committee dated Tuesday, 12 of the 16 members of the centrist Senate Democratic coalition, which calls itself "the moderate Dems Working Group," expressed concerns about the direction of the president's $3.6 trillion budget.
The lawmakers noted the Congressional Budget Office's projection of a cumulative deficit over the next 10 years of $9.3 trillion, "roughly $2.3 trillion higher than the president's budget had assumed."
While acknowledging the economic and fiscal distress the Obama administration has inherited, the 12 moderates said the deficit projections "are not acceptable."
The senators who signed the letter were: Bayh, Landrieu, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska. Sen. Joe Lieberman, formerly a Democrat and now an independent from Connecticut, also signed the letter.
Publicly, the administration has tried to minimize differences between Obama's budget proposal and changes sought by congressional Democrats.
The "House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities for the budget," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said in a conference call Wednesday morning.
"There have been some changes made ... but they are 98 percent the same as the budget the president sent up in February."
Obama, in a news conference on Tuesday, defended his budget, saying the plan he proposed is "inseparable" from the overall strategy for economic recovery.
Obama brushed off those skeptical of the scope of his investments, saying, "We haven't seen an alternative budget out of them."
Republicans, who blasted the Obama budget proposal because it "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much," according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have also criticized Conrad's proposal because some of the items Conrad stripped from the spending blueprint might have to be funded anyway.
For example, Conrad's budget strikes Obama's proposal to set aside $250 billion in case more money is needed for the financial sector rescue, an aide said.
Conrad's budget also curtails Obama's fix of the costly alternative minimum tax and doesn't account for increased payments for doctors who care for Medicare recipients, said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee.
"You can get these presidential numbers down by using a lot of gimmicks that the president didn't use. That would be a mistake. Let's be honest with the Americans," Gregg said Tuesday.
"It's certainly not a gimmick," Conrad responded Tuesday. "We faced up to changes."
Questions pour in for Obama's online town meeting.
(CNN)
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.
Now, in the 21st century, President Obama has found his own fireside equivalent, launching an online town hall meeting Thursday where he will answer citizens' questions about the troubled economy and his efforts to fix it.
"We're going to try something a little different. We are going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy," he says in an introductory video on the site.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, more than 30,000 people had submitted more than 32,000 questions on the official administration Web site, WhiteHouse.gov.
Americans may submit questions, and vote on others' queries, until 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday. Obama has promised to answer the most popular questions through a live video stream on WhiteHouse.gov. beginning Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The site had recorded more than 1 million votes as of late Wednesday afternoon.
The White House's Web site asks people to agree to post "only questions related to the economy (including topics essential to long-term economic growth, such as education, fiscal responsibility, green jobs and energy, health care reform, and home ownership)."
A quick review of questions revealed deep concerns among Americans trying to make ends meet.
"What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?" asked James of Bloomington, Indiana, who described himself as a full-time student who also works full time, "only to break even at the end of the month."
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During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.
Now, in the 21st century, President Obama has found his own fireside equivalent, launching an online town hall meeting Thursday where he will answer citizens' questions about the troubled economy and his efforts to fix it.
"We're going to try something a little different. We are going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy," he says in an introductory video on the site.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, more than 30,000 people had submitted more than 32,000 questions on the official administration Web site, WhiteHouse.gov.
Americans may submit questions, and vote on others' queries, until 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday. Obama has promised to answer the most popular questions through a live video stream on WhiteHouse.gov. beginning Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The site had recorded more than 1 million votes as of late Wednesday afternoon.
The White House's Web site asks people to agree to post "only questions related to the economy (including topics essential to long-term economic growth, such as education, fiscal responsibility, green jobs and energy, health care reform, and home ownership)."
A quick review of questions revealed deep concerns among Americans trying to make ends meet.
"What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?" asked James of Bloomington, Indiana, who described himself as a full-time student who also works full time, "only to break even at the end of the month."
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Monday, March 16, 2009
The 'three-fifth clause' in the Constitution
1783-1799: The Miracle of Democracy
1783-1865: UNITED STATES. The U.S. Constitution is approved. Amongst other things, this fabulous instrument of freedom carries a provision preventing Congress from banning the importation of slaves. But, most significantly, the authors of the Constitution were very careful to ensure that it validated slavery by means of a so-called "positive" law embedded in Article 4, Section 2: "No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up; on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In plain English, there was no escape for slaves in the land of the free and the U.S. Constitution made damned sure of it.
In a magical inversion of reality, U.S. histories repeatedly refer to assemblies, governors and presidents as being elected by “popular” vote. In truth, however, in the United States, popular votes are strictly verboten. Blacks in the new “democracy” are items of property who cannot vote or hold office. Indentured whites, are simply slaves of another name and another color and who can not vote or hold office. Indians, upon whose stolen land the new nation stands, and who were described in the racist Declaration of Independence as “merciless Indian savages”, cannot vote or hold office. In most states in this brave new homeland of “religious freedom”, Catholics and Jews cannot vote or hold office. Women, regardless of race, creed, color or religion, are chattels who cannot vote or hold office. White men, even those most sacred of all God's creatures; white, Protestant, non-indentured men, cannot vote or hold office unless they meet a further qualification for membership in the ruling class; they must be very, very rich.
Although it varied from state to state, the property qualification which opened the doors to participation in the new demockracy was as much as $4000, an astronomical sum in the eighteenth century, equal to millions of dollars today.
The right to vote and hold office and all political and economic power in the new demockracy was, of course, held by a tiny handful of what would later come to be known as fascists, a small fraction of one percent of the population, the ultra-wealthy, white, male, Protestant, slave-owning, land speculating, terrorist, thoroughly unscrupulous elite; a self-appointed aristocracy of hypocrisy which looked down in open contempt upon most of their fellow human beings including ordinary Americans of all races.
Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level. John Adams.
Imagine that, equality in the land of the free! Can't be havin' none of that.
Those who refused to swear allegiance to the newly installed dictatorship of the ultra-wealthy were denied virtually all civil liberties, were jailed, murdered or forced into exile and their property stolen.
The “three-fifths” clause of the Constitution counted each slave owned as three-fifths of a person for the sake of apportionment of electoral districts although the slaves themselves were not, of course, allowed to vote. The effect was to give slave-owners a hugely disproportionate share of political power amongst the tiny minority of Americans who had any at all. The slave-owners had about a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than they would otherwise have had.
The desire to keep control of the country in the hands of the slave-owners also stood behind the creation of the Electoral College. Votes in the Electoral College, which “elects” the president, neatly sidestepping direct election, were apportioned using the same three-fifths rule. Thanks to the three-fifths clause, slave-owners dominated the government of the United States until 1865. For most of the period, slave-owners occupied the presidency, the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Speaker’s chair. During the same period, eighteen of thirty one justices of the Supreme Court, that great protector of human rights and dignity, were slave-owners.
The much propagandized first president, George Washington, was an elitist snob who considered ordinary Americans no better than cattle. He called the white citizens of the new country over which he lorded “the grazing multitude”. Washington was a slave owner and a land speculator.
The great freedom lover owned about two hundred and fifty slaves, dressed them in rags, auctioned off their children for yet more cash, of which he could never, apparently, acquire enough, and had them viciously whipped for “disobedience”. Among Washington’s many business "enterprises" was the construction of a canal through the Great Dismal Swamp in the Carolinas. The canal was hand-dug by slaves through steaming, mosquito-infested swamp. The slaves were worked to death in appalling conditions so that Washington, already the wealthiest man in the United States, could grow even richer.
Aside from his desire to maintain slavery, Washington, as a leading land speculator, was particularly anxious to gain control of the government because the British had signed a treaty with the Cherokee Nation and other Indian nations which prevented him stealing their ancestral land for profit. As President, Washington, in his fervor to steal the maximum possible amount of Indian land, was also a mass murderer of considerable accomplishment; the country's leading early practitioner of the ethnic cleansing of native Americans. According to Washington, native Americans were "wolves and beasts" who deserved nothing from the whites but "total ruin."
The second president, John Adams, had no higher opinion of ordinary white Americans than Washington. They were, he said, the “common herd” and had “no idea of learning, eloquence and genius” and were “locked within vulgar, rustic imaginations”.
1780: UNITED STATES. Captain Daniel Shays, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, fought at Saratoga, Bunker Hill and Lexington and was wounded in action. A poor farmer, he, like thousands of others, was not paid by the ruling class which had forced colonists by threat and violence into the Revolutionary armies. He returned to his hometown of Pelham, Massachusetts, where he, like many others, was promptly imprisoned for unpaid taxes by the new regime.
Although he had had to fight for “democracy” and was assessed taxes he could not afford to pay, Shays was not permitted to vote or hold office in new demockracy. To Shays and the vast majority of people in the new United States, the slave-owners’ propaganda slogan, “no taxation without representation” was simply a sick joke of the wealthy hypocrites who now completely controlled the country.
Revolutionary “hero” Sam Adams, staunch hypocrite and liar, safely installed as one of the ruling class sitting in the Massachusetts State Council, achieved new but unsurprising heights of hypocrisy when he proposed to hang Shays and anyone else resorting to civil disobedience in an attempt to bring genuine democracy and liberty or even something as simple as "no taxation without representation" to the United States.
The Massachusetts Riot Act of 1786 ordered the killing of any rebellious farmer and instituted a property seizure law. Rebellious farmers were to "forfeit all their lands, goods and chattels to the Commonwealth." Massachussetts also suspended habeas corpus meaning that citizens could be imprisoned indefinitely by the ruling junta without charge or trial. Freedom of speech in Massachussetts was banned if it was "to the prejudice of the government." The chief sponsor of all this fascist oppression? None other than the great freedom fighter Sam Adams. Vermont went down the same road, enacting The Riot Act which authorized county sheriffs to shoot rebellious farmers on sight
Petitions were made to the regime for an honest monetary system, lower taxes and a fair judicial system. The petitions were ignored and, in desperation, groups of farmers occupied the courthouses in Northampton, Worcester, Concord, Taunton and Great Barrington, Massachusetts in an attempt to stop the ongoing jailing of those who could not afford to pay the taxes assessed by the regime.
The Supreme Judicial Court, sitting in Springfield, indicted eleven leaders of the uprising for “sedition”. Upon his release from jail, Shays lead a ragtag army of fifteen hundred ex-soldiers, wearing the uniform of the Revolutionary army which had betrayed them, to occupy the Courthouse. Later, Shays lead two thousand farmers in an assault on the Federal Arsenal in Springfield.
Shays’ Rebellion, the real American revolution for liberty and equality (for white people at least), for no taxation without representation and for some semblance of democracy, was ruthlessly crushed by overwhelming military force, leaving the United States firmly in the hands of the slave-owning ruling class. Shays and thirteen others were condemned to death for “treason” against the elitist dictatorship. Ultimately, twelve of the fourteen were pardoned by the newly-installed governor of Massachusetts. Two were executed. Shays, one of the few true heroes of the era, died in poverty.
1782: UNITED STATES. A raiding party of one hundred and fifty Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounds up a group of Munsee Indians near Gnadenhutten, Ohio. Even though the Indians are unarmed non-combatants who have converted to Christianity, they are falsely accused of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania. In true democratic fashion, the militiamen vote to slaughter the Indians anyway and inform the Munsee of their fate.
The Munsees spend the night praying and singing hymns. The following morning, they are slaughtered as they kneel, praying, their skulls crushed with mallets. Twenty eight men, twenty nine women and thirty nine children are murdered and then scalped by the forces of freedom. The corpses are then heaped into nearby Christian mission buildings and the entire town burned to the ground. Other towns nearby are burned as well. Two Munsee boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Slave-owner and land speculator General George Washington's reaction to the massacre was not to punish the murderers but to order that no American soldier allow himself to be taken alive by Indians for fear of retribution for the massacre.
1783-present: UNITED STATES. The new regime immediately allows the land speculators who had been instrumental in the planning and execution of the Revolution to seize Indian land, abrogating treaties and carrying out a relentless program of genocide and ethnic cleansing against native Americans which will last for more than a century. Millions of American Indians are killed outright or die as a result of deliberately-induced disease and starvation. Virtually all Indian land, consisting of the vast majority of the land west of the Mississippi River, is stolen. Of course, this will all be presented to Americans of later generations as valiant pioneers taming the wilderness.
A British visitor to America, 1784
1789-1797: UNITED STATES. Slave-owner, land speculator, ethnic cleanser and mass murder cover-up-artist George Washington becomes the first President of the United States, an office to which he was “elected”, unanimously, by his fellow land speculators and slave-owners in the Electoral College, dispensing with even the merest pretence of democracy.
A great proponent of liberty, Washington takes eight of his slaves to the executive mansion in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania had outlawed slavery but Washington, a straight shootin' guy as we all know, got around the law by declaring that he was a Virginia resident only temporarily staying in what was then the capitol.
Once he gets his slaves settled in, Washington gets down to work, spending eighty percent of the budget of the new nation on ethnic cleansing; exterminating native Americans and stealing their land, something very dear to his own heart and bank account.
1791-1794: UNITED STATES. The new U.S. government, with an unelected president and voting for other offices restricted to wealthy, white, Protestant males, continues to explore the limits of hypocrisy by broadening its policy of taxation without representation. The federal government imposes a new tax on distilled spirits. Naturally, the rate is fifty percent higher on small farms than on large commercial producers. Because they often lacked any way of getting their grain to market, distilling liquor, thereby making a compact, easily transported commodity, was, for many small farmers, the only way of making any money at all from their crop.
Bitterly opposing such taxation without representation, farmers harass tax collectors and stage sometimes violent protests in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia in the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. As in the case of Shay's Rebellion, the fine new "democratic" government of the United States uses overwhelming violence to suppress dissent by American citizens and to enforce the policy of taxation without representation. Slave-owner and ethnic cleanser cum unelected President George Washington invokes martial law and assembles a force of 13,000 troops, about the same size as the entire American army in the Revolutionary War. He personally leads the troops against the citizens of the United States in order to enforce obedience to his regime's dictates and its policy of taxation without representation.
Ultimately, twenty residents of the new demockracy are arrested and imprisoned. One dies in captivity. Two are convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging.
1793: UNITED STATES. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act which mandates the return of escaped slaves to their "owners" from anywhere in the U.S. Blacks fleeing slavery no longer just have to get to a state which has abandoned slavery but have to escape completely from the "land of the free” to British territory in Canada or elsewhere in order to find freedom.
1798: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic and seize a French vessel in the city of Puerto Plata.
1798: UNITED STATES. Just seven years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution goes right down the toilet when the Sedition Act of 1798 makes it a crime to, gasp, criticize the government. Can't be havin' none of that in the world's greatest demockracy, can we now bubba?
There were numerous indictments, prosecutions and convictions under the act, the best known of which was the prison sentence given to Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Taking the first Amendment a bit too literally for the tastes of the ruling class, Lyon had a few harsh words for President John Adams saying that Adams is "swallowed up in a coNewer Post
1620: Lie Number One, The Pilgrims
1763-1783: Lie Number Two, The American Revolution
1783-1799: Lie Number Three, The Miracle of Democracy
1800-1849: Thirty Five Invasions And A Genocide
1850-1859: Invasions, Racism, Slavery and Ethnic Cleansing
1860-1864: The Civil War, But First, Let's Kill Some Indians And Get Rid of the Jews
1865-1869: The Final Solution To The Indian Problem And The Invasions Keep On Coming
1870-1884: More Invasions, More Racism, More Ethnic Cleansing. Happy 100th Birthday America.
1885-1894: The U.S. Steals Hawaii, Four Thousand Lynchings, Shooting Workers in the Streets and Planning For a Splendid Little War
1895-1899: The Spanish-American War, A Sordid Little War
1900-1904: The Philippines, A Full Dress Rehearsal For Iraq
1905-1909: Treacherous Muslims and Ze Quest For Ze Master Race
1910-1912: Invasions, Apartheid, Lynchings, Censorship And The Quest For The Master Race But No Conspiracies
1913-1914: Destroying Democracy in Mexico and the Federal Reserve Scam
1915-1916: Dangerous Singers, Lynching Jews and Blacks Speaking French!
1917-1918: Now The Great War's A Good Thing, Fascism In America, SettingThe Stage For Old Adolf Plus The Miracle Of Free Speech
1919-1920: A Summer Of Blood, Lynching Will Brown And J. Edna Hoover Takes The Stage
1921-1922: Setting Up The Hitler Project, Giving Away The Nation's Oil, Mass Murdering Black Americans And Poisoning All Americans
1923-1924: Destroying Rosewood, Racial Purity In Virginia And Prescott Bush And The Boys Get Old Adolf Started
1925-1926: Legislated Ignorance, Dupont's Supermen, Hoover In Drag And Murdering Nicaraguans
1927-1928: Sterilizing Americans, Slaughtering Miners, Making Your Boyfriend FBI Assistant Director, Invading China And Dive Bombing Nicaraguans
1929-1930: The Crash of '29--A Federal Reserve Production, Racist Pseudoscience, Murdering Workers (Again) And The Dulles Brothers Help Old Adolf
1931-1932: Admiring Mussolini, The Depression Ain't So Bad For Some, Murdering U.S. Veterans And Killing Puerto Ricans And Black People For Science
1933-1934: The Dust Bowl, Gangsters In Pinstripe Suits, Pimping For Hitler, The Merchants of Death And An All-American Coup
1935-1936: Arming The Nazis, Gangsters For Capitalism, Hanging Out With Hitler, Blackmailing Hoover And Truth, Justice Or The American Way
1937-1938: Lebensborn U.S.A., Murdering Workers (Again), Murdering Puerto Ricans (Again), Arming Adolf (Again) And Outlawing The Killer Weed
1939-1940: War's Just Good Business, Shortselling Czech Stock, Torturing Veterans' Kids, Crushing Dissent And The Hitler Project Boys Hedge Their Bets
1941-1942: Lobotomizing Rosemary, Shock And Awe, Playing Both Sides Of The War And Concentration Camps In The Land Of The Free
1943-1944: GM Builds Jet Engines For The Nazis, Apartheid In The Workplace, Beating Up Hispanics And The Hitler Project, Plan B
1945: At Nuremberg, Kissinger Joins The Boys, Experiment In Hiroshima, Installing Fascists And It's Not A War Crime When We Do It
You'll be amazed how often the same family names keep popping up. Or maybe not.
This is what is called, in the history biz, a revisionist history. American history, at least as far as the general public knows it, is in desperate need of revision, bringing what is taught and what is said about America's past more in line with the truth.
Making the World Safe For Hypocrisy is a chronology of the largely suppressed history of the United States. It is the history that good upstanding Americans are not supposed to know.
Almost everything you read here is based on publicly available information and most historians know all about it. And yet they remain strangely silent, allowing the fantasyland, propagandized version of American history and the fatuous pseudo-patriotic nonsense spewed by politicians and the mass media to stand unchallenged.
A nation
which does not know
what it was yesterday,
does not know
what it is today.
Woodrow Wilson
He who controls the present,
controls the past.
He who controls the past,
controls the future.
George Orwell
The essence of propaganda
consists of winning people
over to an idea
so sincerely, so vitally,
that in the end
they succumb to it utterly
and can never escape from it.
Joseph Goebbels
America has been something
of a divided personality,
tragically divided
against herself.
On the one hand
we have proudly professed
the great principles
of democracy,
but on the other hand
we have sadly practiced
the very opposite
of these principles.
Martin Luther King
None are more
hopelessly enslaved
than those
who falsely believe
that they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ANTI-AMERICAN?
Whenever anyone dares to point out the painfully obvious fact that the U.S. and its leaders have for two hundred years consistently acted in a fashion diametrically opposed to the values which America claims to represent, that person is instantly accused of being anti-American.
Do you consider yourself anti-american?
If believing in free speech and real democracy is anti-American, If believing that a government should not lie endlessly is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not spy on its own citizens is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not kidnap, torture and murder is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government shouldn't slaughter millions of innocent people simply to further enrich the same old handful of psychopathic bastards and their offspring is anti-American, then I guess I am.
RESOURCES ON THE WEB
911 Truth: A very good place to begin thinking about the Bush regime's unlikely conspiracy theory of 9-11.
AdBusters: A spunky Canadian anti-consumerist magazine with a lot of interesting news and comment you won't find in the mainstream media.
Alex Jones' Prison Planet: Lots of coverage of events past and present.
Amnesty International.
Common Dreams: The news CNN and Fox don't want you to know.
Conspiracy Planet: Amazing how often the simple truth is labelled a "conspiracy theory".
CorpWatch: The dark underside of corporate America.
Exulanten: An exhaustively researched look at how anti-German hatred was manufactured by the CPI during World War One.
Global Research: Excellent and detailed background and commentary on the American Empire.
Indy Media: An excellent resource of the news the mainstream media studiously avoid.
John Pilger is an intrepid Australian journalist. Read his stuff.
KryssTal, The Acts of the Democracies: An appalling record of genocide and war crimes carried out by the "democracies".
Mostly Water: A slightly differenent compendium of news and comment.
National Security Archive at George Washington University: A repository of declassified U.S. government documents. Imagine what they are still hiding from us.
Project Censored: Decades of documented censorship and suppression of truth in the American corporate mass media.
Robert Fisk: One of the most intrepid journalists in the world. What you're not supposed to know about Israel, Iraq and much more.
The Memory Hole: A treasure trove of official documents.
Third World Traveler: A huge resource on what the U.S. really does in the developing world.
Without Sanctuary: A heartbreaking collection of photogaphs of lynchings. Real U.S. history.
World Socialist Website: Never mind socialism, more truth than you'll ever find in the corporate mass media.
NEEDLES OF TRUTH IN THE HAYSTACK OF LIES
1984, George Orwell: Old George was bang on with the techniques used by the rulers. "America" couldn't exist without doublethink.
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn: More history you're not supposed to know.
American Holocaust, David Stannard: The genocide of the American Indians.
Body of Secrets, James Bamford: The National Security Agency spies on all Americans all the time.
Deadly Deceits, Ralph McGehee: A insider's look at one of the world's leading terrorist organizations, the CIA.
Freeing The World To Death, William Blum: Essays on the American Empire.
Full Spectrum Dominance, Rahul Mahajan: The U.S. in Iraq and beyond.
Hidden Agenda, Ramsey Clark et al: The destuction of Yugoslavia by the U.S. and NATO.
House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger: The Bushes have had their snouts up the Saudi pursehole for half a century.
IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black: the Nazis and America's most powerful corporations in cahoots.
Imperial Brain Trust, Laurence Shoup and William Minter: The Rockefellers' Council on Foreign Relations.
Killing Hope, William Blum: A saddening record of America's use of overwhelming violence to crush democracy and hope around the world.
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen: American children are taught the lies from day one.
Propaganda, Edward Bernays: The textbook of manipulation of the public by Woodrow Wilson's propaganda maven.
Rogue State, William Blum: All other rogue states pale into insignificance when compared with the U.S.
Terrorizing the Neighbourhood, Noam Chomsky: What America really does to its neighbors.
The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, Anthony Summers: America's leading law enforcment officer was a lifelong crook. Quelle surprise.
The Splendid Blond Beast, Christopher Simpson: Nazi war criminals rescued by the U.S. and hired by the U.S. government and military.
Warriors of Disinformation, Alvin Snyder. On disinformation by someone who should know, the former director of the U.S. Information Agency.
Western State Terrorism, Alexander George Editor: The title says it all.
1783-1865: UNITED STATES. The U.S. Constitution is approved. Amongst other things, this fabulous instrument of freedom carries a provision preventing Congress from banning the importation of slaves. But, most significantly, the authors of the Constitution were very careful to ensure that it validated slavery by means of a so-called "positive" law embedded in Article 4, Section 2: "No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up; on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In plain English, there was no escape for slaves in the land of the free and the U.S. Constitution made damned sure of it.
In a magical inversion of reality, U.S. histories repeatedly refer to assemblies, governors and presidents as being elected by “popular” vote. In truth, however, in the United States, popular votes are strictly verboten. Blacks in the new “democracy” are items of property who cannot vote or hold office. Indentured whites, are simply slaves of another name and another color and who can not vote or hold office. Indians, upon whose stolen land the new nation stands, and who were described in the racist Declaration of Independence as “merciless Indian savages”, cannot vote or hold office. In most states in this brave new homeland of “religious freedom”, Catholics and Jews cannot vote or hold office. Women, regardless of race, creed, color or religion, are chattels who cannot vote or hold office. White men, even those most sacred of all God's creatures; white, Protestant, non-indentured men, cannot vote or hold office unless they meet a further qualification for membership in the ruling class; they must be very, very rich.
Although it varied from state to state, the property qualification which opened the doors to participation in the new demockracy was as much as $4000, an astronomical sum in the eighteenth century, equal to millions of dollars today.
The right to vote and hold office and all political and economic power in the new demockracy was, of course, held by a tiny handful of what would later come to be known as fascists, a small fraction of one percent of the population, the ultra-wealthy, white, male, Protestant, slave-owning, land speculating, terrorist, thoroughly unscrupulous elite; a self-appointed aristocracy of hypocrisy which looked down in open contempt upon most of their fellow human beings including ordinary Americans of all races.
Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level. John Adams.
Imagine that, equality in the land of the free! Can't be havin' none of that.
Those who refused to swear allegiance to the newly installed dictatorship of the ultra-wealthy were denied virtually all civil liberties, were jailed, murdered or forced into exile and their property stolen.
The “three-fifths” clause of the Constitution counted each slave owned as three-fifths of a person for the sake of apportionment of electoral districts although the slaves themselves were not, of course, allowed to vote. The effect was to give slave-owners a hugely disproportionate share of political power amongst the tiny minority of Americans who had any at all. The slave-owners had about a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than they would otherwise have had.
The desire to keep control of the country in the hands of the slave-owners also stood behind the creation of the Electoral College. Votes in the Electoral College, which “elects” the president, neatly sidestepping direct election, were apportioned using the same three-fifths rule. Thanks to the three-fifths clause, slave-owners dominated the government of the United States until 1865. For most of the period, slave-owners occupied the presidency, the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Speaker’s chair. During the same period, eighteen of thirty one justices of the Supreme Court, that great protector of human rights and dignity, were slave-owners.
The much propagandized first president, George Washington, was an elitist snob who considered ordinary Americans no better than cattle. He called the white citizens of the new country over which he lorded “the grazing multitude”. Washington was a slave owner and a land speculator.
The great freedom lover owned about two hundred and fifty slaves, dressed them in rags, auctioned off their children for yet more cash, of which he could never, apparently, acquire enough, and had them viciously whipped for “disobedience”. Among Washington’s many business "enterprises" was the construction of a canal through the Great Dismal Swamp in the Carolinas. The canal was hand-dug by slaves through steaming, mosquito-infested swamp. The slaves were worked to death in appalling conditions so that Washington, already the wealthiest man in the United States, could grow even richer.
Aside from his desire to maintain slavery, Washington, as a leading land speculator, was particularly anxious to gain control of the government because the British had signed a treaty with the Cherokee Nation and other Indian nations which prevented him stealing their ancestral land for profit. As President, Washington, in his fervor to steal the maximum possible amount of Indian land, was also a mass murderer of considerable accomplishment; the country's leading early practitioner of the ethnic cleansing of native Americans. According to Washington, native Americans were "wolves and beasts" who deserved nothing from the whites but "total ruin."
The second president, John Adams, had no higher opinion of ordinary white Americans than Washington. They were, he said, the “common herd” and had “no idea of learning, eloquence and genius” and were “locked within vulgar, rustic imaginations”.
1780: UNITED STATES. Captain Daniel Shays, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, fought at Saratoga, Bunker Hill and Lexington and was wounded in action. A poor farmer, he, like thousands of others, was not paid by the ruling class which had forced colonists by threat and violence into the Revolutionary armies. He returned to his hometown of Pelham, Massachusetts, where he, like many others, was promptly imprisoned for unpaid taxes by the new regime.
Although he had had to fight for “democracy” and was assessed taxes he could not afford to pay, Shays was not permitted to vote or hold office in new demockracy. To Shays and the vast majority of people in the new United States, the slave-owners’ propaganda slogan, “no taxation without representation” was simply a sick joke of the wealthy hypocrites who now completely controlled the country.
Revolutionary “hero” Sam Adams, staunch hypocrite and liar, safely installed as one of the ruling class sitting in the Massachusetts State Council, achieved new but unsurprising heights of hypocrisy when he proposed to hang Shays and anyone else resorting to civil disobedience in an attempt to bring genuine democracy and liberty or even something as simple as "no taxation without representation" to the United States.
The Massachusetts Riot Act of 1786 ordered the killing of any rebellious farmer and instituted a property seizure law. Rebellious farmers were to "forfeit all their lands, goods and chattels to the Commonwealth." Massachussetts also suspended habeas corpus meaning that citizens could be imprisoned indefinitely by the ruling junta without charge or trial. Freedom of speech in Massachussetts was banned if it was "to the prejudice of the government." The chief sponsor of all this fascist oppression? None other than the great freedom fighter Sam Adams. Vermont went down the same road, enacting The Riot Act which authorized county sheriffs to shoot rebellious farmers on sight
Petitions were made to the regime for an honest monetary system, lower taxes and a fair judicial system. The petitions were ignored and, in desperation, groups of farmers occupied the courthouses in Northampton, Worcester, Concord, Taunton and Great Barrington, Massachusetts in an attempt to stop the ongoing jailing of those who could not afford to pay the taxes assessed by the regime.
The Supreme Judicial Court, sitting in Springfield, indicted eleven leaders of the uprising for “sedition”. Upon his release from jail, Shays lead a ragtag army of fifteen hundred ex-soldiers, wearing the uniform of the Revolutionary army which had betrayed them, to occupy the Courthouse. Later, Shays lead two thousand farmers in an assault on the Federal Arsenal in Springfield.
Shays’ Rebellion, the real American revolution for liberty and equality (for white people at least), for no taxation without representation and for some semblance of democracy, was ruthlessly crushed by overwhelming military force, leaving the United States firmly in the hands of the slave-owning ruling class. Shays and thirteen others were condemned to death for “treason” against the elitist dictatorship. Ultimately, twelve of the fourteen were pardoned by the newly-installed governor of Massachusetts. Two were executed. Shays, one of the few true heroes of the era, died in poverty.
1782: UNITED STATES. A raiding party of one hundred and fifty Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounds up a group of Munsee Indians near Gnadenhutten, Ohio. Even though the Indians are unarmed non-combatants who have converted to Christianity, they are falsely accused of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania. In true democratic fashion, the militiamen vote to slaughter the Indians anyway and inform the Munsee of their fate.
The Munsees spend the night praying and singing hymns. The following morning, they are slaughtered as they kneel, praying, their skulls crushed with mallets. Twenty eight men, twenty nine women and thirty nine children are murdered and then scalped by the forces of freedom. The corpses are then heaped into nearby Christian mission buildings and the entire town burned to the ground. Other towns nearby are burned as well. Two Munsee boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Slave-owner and land speculator General George Washington's reaction to the massacre was not to punish the murderers but to order that no American soldier allow himself to be taken alive by Indians for fear of retribution for the massacre.
1783-present: UNITED STATES. The new regime immediately allows the land speculators who had been instrumental in the planning and execution of the Revolution to seize Indian land, abrogating treaties and carrying out a relentless program of genocide and ethnic cleansing against native Americans which will last for more than a century. Millions of American Indians are killed outright or die as a result of deliberately-induced disease and starvation. Virtually all Indian land, consisting of the vast majority of the land west of the Mississippi River, is stolen. Of course, this will all be presented to Americans of later generations as valiant pioneers taming the wilderness.
A British visitor to America, 1784
1789-1797: UNITED STATES. Slave-owner, land speculator, ethnic cleanser and mass murder cover-up-artist George Washington becomes the first President of the United States, an office to which he was “elected”, unanimously, by his fellow land speculators and slave-owners in the Electoral College, dispensing with even the merest pretence of democracy.
A great proponent of liberty, Washington takes eight of his slaves to the executive mansion in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania had outlawed slavery but Washington, a straight shootin' guy as we all know, got around the law by declaring that he was a Virginia resident only temporarily staying in what was then the capitol.
Once he gets his slaves settled in, Washington gets down to work, spending eighty percent of the budget of the new nation on ethnic cleansing; exterminating native Americans and stealing their land, something very dear to his own heart and bank account.
1791-1794: UNITED STATES. The new U.S. government, with an unelected president and voting for other offices restricted to wealthy, white, Protestant males, continues to explore the limits of hypocrisy by broadening its policy of taxation without representation. The federal government imposes a new tax on distilled spirits. Naturally, the rate is fifty percent higher on small farms than on large commercial producers. Because they often lacked any way of getting their grain to market, distilling liquor, thereby making a compact, easily transported commodity, was, for many small farmers, the only way of making any money at all from their crop.
Bitterly opposing such taxation without representation, farmers harass tax collectors and stage sometimes violent protests in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia in the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. As in the case of Shay's Rebellion, the fine new "democratic" government of the United States uses overwhelming violence to suppress dissent by American citizens and to enforce the policy of taxation without representation. Slave-owner and ethnic cleanser cum unelected President George Washington invokes martial law and assembles a force of 13,000 troops, about the same size as the entire American army in the Revolutionary War. He personally leads the troops against the citizens of the United States in order to enforce obedience to his regime's dictates and its policy of taxation without representation.
Ultimately, twenty residents of the new demockracy are arrested and imprisoned. One dies in captivity. Two are convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging.
1793: UNITED STATES. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act which mandates the return of escaped slaves to their "owners" from anywhere in the U.S. Blacks fleeing slavery no longer just have to get to a state which has abandoned slavery but have to escape completely from the "land of the free” to British territory in Canada or elsewhere in order to find freedom.
1798: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic and seize a French vessel in the city of Puerto Plata.
1798: UNITED STATES. Just seven years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution goes right down the toilet when the Sedition Act of 1798 makes it a crime to, gasp, criticize the government. Can't be havin' none of that in the world's greatest demockracy, can we now bubba?
There were numerous indictments, prosecutions and convictions under the act, the best known of which was the prison sentence given to Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Taking the first Amendment a bit too literally for the tastes of the ruling class, Lyon had a few harsh words for President John Adams saying that Adams is "swallowed up in a coNewer Post
1620: Lie Number One, The Pilgrims
1763-1783: Lie Number Two, The American Revolution
1783-1799: Lie Number Three, The Miracle of Democracy
1800-1849: Thirty Five Invasions And A Genocide
1850-1859: Invasions, Racism, Slavery and Ethnic Cleansing
1860-1864: The Civil War, But First, Let's Kill Some Indians And Get Rid of the Jews
1865-1869: The Final Solution To The Indian Problem And The Invasions Keep On Coming
1870-1884: More Invasions, More Racism, More Ethnic Cleansing. Happy 100th Birthday America.
1885-1894: The U.S. Steals Hawaii, Four Thousand Lynchings, Shooting Workers in the Streets and Planning For a Splendid Little War
1895-1899: The Spanish-American War, A Sordid Little War
1900-1904: The Philippines, A Full Dress Rehearsal For Iraq
1905-1909: Treacherous Muslims and Ze Quest For Ze Master Race
1910-1912: Invasions, Apartheid, Lynchings, Censorship And The Quest For The Master Race But No Conspiracies
1913-1914: Destroying Democracy in Mexico and the Federal Reserve Scam
1915-1916: Dangerous Singers, Lynching Jews and Blacks Speaking French!
1917-1918: Now The Great War's A Good Thing, Fascism In America, SettingThe Stage For Old Adolf Plus The Miracle Of Free Speech
1919-1920: A Summer Of Blood, Lynching Will Brown And J. Edna Hoover Takes The Stage
1921-1922: Setting Up The Hitler Project, Giving Away The Nation's Oil, Mass Murdering Black Americans And Poisoning All Americans
1923-1924: Destroying Rosewood, Racial Purity In Virginia And Prescott Bush And The Boys Get Old Adolf Started
1925-1926: Legislated Ignorance, Dupont's Supermen, Hoover In Drag And Murdering Nicaraguans
1927-1928: Sterilizing Americans, Slaughtering Miners, Making Your Boyfriend FBI Assistant Director, Invading China And Dive Bombing Nicaraguans
1929-1930: The Crash of '29--A Federal Reserve Production, Racist Pseudoscience, Murdering Workers (Again) And The Dulles Brothers Help Old Adolf
1931-1932: Admiring Mussolini, The Depression Ain't So Bad For Some, Murdering U.S. Veterans And Killing Puerto Ricans And Black People For Science
1933-1934: The Dust Bowl, Gangsters In Pinstripe Suits, Pimping For Hitler, The Merchants of Death And An All-American Coup
1935-1936: Arming The Nazis, Gangsters For Capitalism, Hanging Out With Hitler, Blackmailing Hoover And Truth, Justice Or The American Way
1937-1938: Lebensborn U.S.A., Murdering Workers (Again), Murdering Puerto Ricans (Again), Arming Adolf (Again) And Outlawing The Killer Weed
1939-1940: War's Just Good Business, Shortselling Czech Stock, Torturing Veterans' Kids, Crushing Dissent And The Hitler Project Boys Hedge Their Bets
1941-1942: Lobotomizing Rosemary, Shock And Awe, Playing Both Sides Of The War And Concentration Camps In The Land Of The Free
1943-1944: GM Builds Jet Engines For The Nazis, Apartheid In The Workplace, Beating Up Hispanics And The Hitler Project, Plan B
1945: At Nuremberg, Kissinger Joins The Boys, Experiment In Hiroshima, Installing Fascists And It's Not A War Crime When We Do It
You'll be amazed how often the same family names keep popping up. Or maybe not.
This is what is called, in the history biz, a revisionist history. American history, at least as far as the general public knows it, is in desperate need of revision, bringing what is taught and what is said about America's past more in line with the truth.
Making the World Safe For Hypocrisy is a chronology of the largely suppressed history of the United States. It is the history that good upstanding Americans are not supposed to know.
Almost everything you read here is based on publicly available information and most historians know all about it. And yet they remain strangely silent, allowing the fantasyland, propagandized version of American history and the fatuous pseudo-patriotic nonsense spewed by politicians and the mass media to stand unchallenged.
A nation
which does not know
what it was yesterday,
does not know
what it is today.
Woodrow Wilson
He who controls the present,
controls the past.
He who controls the past,
controls the future.
George Orwell
The essence of propaganda
consists of winning people
over to an idea
so sincerely, so vitally,
that in the end
they succumb to it utterly
and can never escape from it.
Joseph Goebbels
America has been something
of a divided personality,
tragically divided
against herself.
On the one hand
we have proudly professed
the great principles
of democracy,
but on the other hand
we have sadly practiced
the very opposite
of these principles.
Martin Luther King
None are more
hopelessly enslaved
than those
who falsely believe
that they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ANTI-AMERICAN?
Whenever anyone dares to point out the painfully obvious fact that the U.S. and its leaders have for two hundred years consistently acted in a fashion diametrically opposed to the values which America claims to represent, that person is instantly accused of being anti-American.
Do you consider yourself anti-american?
If believing in free speech and real democracy is anti-American, If believing that a government should not lie endlessly is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not spy on its own citizens is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not kidnap, torture and murder is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government shouldn't slaughter millions of innocent people simply to further enrich the same old handful of psychopathic bastards and their offspring is anti-American, then I guess I am.
RESOURCES ON THE WEB
911 Truth: A very good place to begin thinking about the Bush regime's unlikely conspiracy theory of 9-11.
AdBusters: A spunky Canadian anti-consumerist magazine with a lot of interesting news and comment you won't find in the mainstream media.
Alex Jones' Prison Planet: Lots of coverage of events past and present.
Amnesty International.
Common Dreams: The news CNN and Fox don't want you to know.
Conspiracy Planet: Amazing how often the simple truth is labelled a "conspiracy theory".
CorpWatch: The dark underside of corporate America.
Exulanten: An exhaustively researched look at how anti-German hatred was manufactured by the CPI during World War One.
Global Research: Excellent and detailed background and commentary on the American Empire.
Indy Media: An excellent resource of the news the mainstream media studiously avoid.
John Pilger is an intrepid Australian journalist. Read his stuff.
KryssTal, The Acts of the Democracies: An appalling record of genocide and war crimes carried out by the "democracies".
Mostly Water: A slightly differenent compendium of news and comment.
National Security Archive at George Washington University: A repository of declassified U.S. government documents. Imagine what they are still hiding from us.
Project Censored: Decades of documented censorship and suppression of truth in the American corporate mass media.
Robert Fisk: One of the most intrepid journalists in the world. What you're not supposed to know about Israel, Iraq and much more.
The Memory Hole: A treasure trove of official documents.
Third World Traveler: A huge resource on what the U.S. really does in the developing world.
Without Sanctuary: A heartbreaking collection of photogaphs of lynchings. Real U.S. history.
World Socialist Website: Never mind socialism, more truth than you'll ever find in the corporate mass media.
NEEDLES OF TRUTH IN THE HAYSTACK OF LIES
1984, George Orwell: Old George was bang on with the techniques used by the rulers. "America" couldn't exist without doublethink.
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn: More history you're not supposed to know.
American Holocaust, David Stannard: The genocide of the American Indians.
Body of Secrets, James Bamford: The National Security Agency spies on all Americans all the time.
Deadly Deceits, Ralph McGehee: A insider's look at one of the world's leading terrorist organizations, the CIA.
Freeing The World To Death, William Blum: Essays on the American Empire.
Full Spectrum Dominance, Rahul Mahajan: The U.S. in Iraq and beyond.
Hidden Agenda, Ramsey Clark et al: The destuction of Yugoslavia by the U.S. and NATO.
House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger: The Bushes have had their snouts up the Saudi pursehole for half a century.
IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black: the Nazis and America's most powerful corporations in cahoots.
Imperial Brain Trust, Laurence Shoup and William Minter: The Rockefellers' Council on Foreign Relations.
Killing Hope, William Blum: A saddening record of America's use of overwhelming violence to crush democracy and hope around the world.
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen: American children are taught the lies from day one.
Propaganda, Edward Bernays: The textbook of manipulation of the public by Woodrow Wilson's propaganda maven.
Rogue State, William Blum: All other rogue states pale into insignificance when compared with the U.S.
Terrorizing the Neighbourhood, Noam Chomsky: What America really does to its neighbors.
The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, Anthony Summers: America's leading law enforcment officer was a lifelong crook. Quelle surprise.
The Splendid Blond Beast, Christopher Simpson: Nazi war criminals rescued by the U.S. and hired by the U.S. government and military.
Warriors of Disinformation, Alvin Snyder. On disinformation by someone who should know, the former director of the U.S. Information Agency.
Western State Terrorism, Alexander George Editor: The title says it all.
Origins of the word 'Lynch'
1776-82: THIRTEEN COLONIES.
Virginia planter Charles Lynch puts his name into the language when he creates a kangaroo court for the persecution of Loyalists and their forced conversion to the “patriot” cause by torture and terror. Lynch and his vigilantes kidnap Loyalists, subject them to fake trials and then immediately carry out “sentence” which might include up to thirty nine lashes, property seizure and hanging by the thumbs from the walnut tree on Lynch’s property, giving rise to the term “lynching”. Lynch also coerced pledges of allegiance to the rebel cause and forced conscription into the rebel forces. Lynch also facilitated the theft of property belonging to his victims.
In the interests of fairness and justice, in 1782, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a special act naming Lynch and three of his fellow vigilantes, retroactively providing them with immunity for their crimes.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Courts refuses to expand minority voting rights
March 9, 2009
Court refuses to expand minority voting rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act.
The decision could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.
The justices on Monday declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections.
In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a state legislative district in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of the voting age population. The court said the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts with a numerical majority of minority voters.
AP
Supreme Court considers challenge to Voting Rights Act
- Are You Riled Up? …
Anonymous on For Blacks in France Obama’s…
Court refuses to expand minority voting rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act.
The decision could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.
The justices on Monday declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections.
In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a state legislative district in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of the voting age population. The court said the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts with a numerical majority of minority voters.
AP
Supreme Court considers challenge to Voting Rights Act
- Are You Riled Up? …
Anonymous on For Blacks in France Obama’s…
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Unfair Justice -The two faces of the law
The Spirit of Sankofa writes...........
I have often wondered, why is that a Black Man or the not so well to do gets arrested, (jump a tunstile in NY) immediately they receive a free go to jail card. Where rich individuals, well to do get arrested they get to enjoy the comforts of home (Penthouse).
Someone expressed- well Madoff hasn't been proven guilty. Neither has the soul that jumped the turnstile.
Another case the Equador immigrant that was murdered alledgely by two black men, charged with a hate crime are receivng a unfair call. Let's be clear if you do the crime you should do the time. But when the district attorney says they should get a sentence of 78 years, I Must Raise My Voice!
Hate-Crimes?
Lets discuss All the Crimes of Hate committed in our time, against people of color. that goes without even a slap on the rist! Unfair for the wheels of Justice that is suppose to represent itself for truth. Exposied the Reality, the scales of Justice are Not leveled when it comes to Afrcan Americans.
Let us take a look back as far as the Civil Rights Movement.
For the symtoms remain -Whatever is within the Heart flows the issues of life.
Part of the problem is- most Blacks earn less, learn less.
Marcus Garvey had an influence in the millions. This made J. Edgar Hoover uneasy. Why did it make him uneasy? Whenever a Black Man had any influence, the goverment saw it as power. According to James Foran, The CRM was under attack by Hoover. The FBI. testified against King and admitted they were persuing him with obessive behavior. The board investigating the FBI asked why, and asked did King comment any crimes of violence to warrant him to be persued and wire tapped. The answer was a resounding NO! They had a hand in the murder of Malcolm, and so on.
Black Culture as a whole was put on notice and spied upon as if it were terrioriist needing to be disected and put on file for more intensive investigation.
Othello a FBI informat spoke about the role he played in the conspiracy and down fall of the fabric of African Culture. He expressed, Black magazines, music. entertainers, athletics Black wrters etc....were placed in an intensive study, using the information such as Blacks behavior patterns, to seek out weaknesses, to use against those that we respect and would listen to. These types of agents didn't stop there, but they ran many studies on African tribalism etc.. They paid this particlar black informnt $800 a week and back in the 70's this salary was very good especially a man of color. He was responsible by his own admission -he burned down Watts. These people also took part in setting people up and writing letters and signing false signatures.
I believe what's most important to the Black community is to understand we need a wake-up call. The point is as I am concern, learn and seeked out as much about yourself, your ancient history. And know..... A people without the knowledge of their ancient history, is like a tree without roots
Marcus Garvey
Hotep - Know Thyself
I have often wondered, why is that a Black Man or the not so well to do gets arrested, (jump a tunstile in NY) immediately they receive a free go to jail card. Where rich individuals, well to do get arrested they get to enjoy the comforts of home (Penthouse).
Someone expressed- well Madoff hasn't been proven guilty. Neither has the soul that jumped the turnstile.
Another case the Equador immigrant that was murdered alledgely by two black men, charged with a hate crime are receivng a unfair call. Let's be clear if you do the crime you should do the time. But when the district attorney says they should get a sentence of 78 years, I Must Raise My Voice!
Hate-Crimes?
Lets discuss All the Crimes of Hate committed in our time, against people of color. that goes without even a slap on the rist! Unfair for the wheels of Justice that is suppose to represent itself for truth. Exposied the Reality, the scales of Justice are Not leveled when it comes to Afrcan Americans.
Let us take a look back as far as the Civil Rights Movement.
For the symtoms remain -Whatever is within the Heart flows the issues of life.
Part of the problem is- most Blacks earn less, learn less.
Marcus Garvey had an influence in the millions. This made J. Edgar Hoover uneasy. Why did it make him uneasy? Whenever a Black Man had any influence, the goverment saw it as power. According to James Foran, The CRM was under attack by Hoover. The FBI. testified against King and admitted they were persuing him with obessive behavior. The board investigating the FBI asked why, and asked did King comment any crimes of violence to warrant him to be persued and wire tapped. The answer was a resounding NO! They had a hand in the murder of Malcolm, and so on.
Black Culture as a whole was put on notice and spied upon as if it were terrioriist needing to be disected and put on file for more intensive investigation.
Othello a FBI informat spoke about the role he played in the conspiracy and down fall of the fabric of African Culture. He expressed, Black magazines, music. entertainers, athletics Black wrters etc....were placed in an intensive study, using the information such as Blacks behavior patterns, to seek out weaknesses, to use against those that we respect and would listen to. These types of agents didn't stop there, but they ran many studies on African tribalism etc.. They paid this particlar black informnt $800 a week and back in the 70's this salary was very good especially a man of color. He was responsible by his own admission -he burned down Watts. These people also took part in setting people up and writing letters and signing false signatures.
I believe what's most important to the Black community is to understand we need a wake-up call. The point is as I am concern, learn and seeked out as much about yourself, your ancient history. And know..... A people without the knowledge of their ancient history, is like a tree without roots
Marcus Garvey
Hotep - Know Thyself
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Ancient statue discovered near Egypt pyramid
This is a fantastic discovery, think about it. Not an excavation but found by maintenanace workers? Awesome.
Check the story out.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29368122/
------------------------
Ancient statue discovered near Egyptian pyramid
February 24, 2009 ·
A 1.5 meter (5 feet) high 4,000-year-old quartz statue has been discovered buried just 40 centimetres (16 inches) below the surface of the sand in the northern part of the pyramid of pharaoh Menkaure (2551-2523 BC). Amazingly, the lifesize statue was not found during an archaeological excavation, but by maintenance workers cleaning an area stepped on by thousands of tourists every day.
The sculpture depicts an unidentified person wearing a medium-length wig, sitting on a chair with his right arm stretched on his knee and holding an unidentified object in his fist, in the style of the Old Kingdom, though it’s difficult at the moment to pinpoint the exact dynasty, because the statue has no visible inscriptions.
The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three Pyramids of Giza.
Pyramids, Plans and Perimeters!
Reflections in the Nile
Talking Pyramids
Royal tomb discovered in Saqqara
Amenhotep III statue rises again in Luxor
Archaeologists rediscover lost Egyptian tomb
Africa afterlife akhenaten Alexander the Great Alexandria Amarna ancient egyptian religion antiquities theft Archaeology Aswan book british museum Brooklyn Museum cairo Christianity economy Egypt environment hatshepsut islam karnak Luxor Metropolitan Museum of Art Middle East Modern Egypt mummies mummy museum Nefertiti Nile Nubia Old Kingdom osiris outsourcing ramses Saqqara Sinai Peninsula theft antiquities tourism tutankhamen Tutankhamun Valley of the Kings women Zahi Hawass
WordPress
Check the story out.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29368122/
------------------------
Ancient statue discovered near Egyptian pyramid
February 24, 2009 ·
A 1.5 meter (5 feet) high 4,000-year-old quartz statue has been discovered buried just 40 centimetres (16 inches) below the surface of the sand in the northern part of the pyramid of pharaoh Menkaure (2551-2523 BC). Amazingly, the lifesize statue was not found during an archaeological excavation, but by maintenance workers cleaning an area stepped on by thousands of tourists every day.
The sculpture depicts an unidentified person wearing a medium-length wig, sitting on a chair with his right arm stretched on his knee and holding an unidentified object in his fist, in the style of the Old Kingdom, though it’s difficult at the moment to pinpoint the exact dynasty, because the statue has no visible inscriptions.
The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three Pyramids of Giza.
Pyramids, Plans and Perimeters!
Reflections in the Nile
Talking Pyramids
Royal tomb discovered in Saqqara
Amenhotep III statue rises again in Luxor
Archaeologists rediscover lost Egyptian tomb
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WordPress
Monday, March 2, 2009
Are Black Reporters caught in a Catch-22?
Spirit of Sankofa writes........
I myself find reporting news from the Black community a task in itself. However,those brothers and sisters who are dedicated to get the news to us are stressed.They feel like their backs are against the wall. Most of our news is indeed compromised. In the perpective Black News Reporters articles are edited to fit the needs of their paper.This practice is disabling, Omitting pertinent information,and preventing the full story from reaching the masses. They also, feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. For the reporters themself don't want to be stereo-type as the only one's capable of covering news in the Black communities. One part of the Catch 22 is,would'nt they better serve the community by covering these type of stories? Do you feel someone other than a african american could be just as fair and straight to the point of reporting all the truth?
What do you think?
Below Black Reporters Sound off. _______
Black Broadcasters Sound Off On Covering Black Community
Mar 01, 2009
Unfair, unbalanced and the overabundance of negative reporting about the black community has often been a complaint among many. There is concern that not only does such reporting paint an inaccurate portrait of a particular ethnic group, but it also sets a dangerous pattern.
Images shown by the media play a role in influencing attitudes toward blacks. Many in the community believe that the over-use of negative images has resulted in a lack of confidence when it comes to entrusting outsiders to tell the black community’s story.
So the question becomes: Are black journalists the only ones capable of accurately and fairly reporting on the black community? Or is the black reporter caught in a Catch-22, stuck between getting it right for his or community and being professionally pigeon holed? If they cover only the black community, they run the danger of becoming known as a reporter who can only cover black stories. If they cover only the mainstream stories, they’d be entrusting someone else to tell the black community’s story.
Should their loyalties be to their media outlets or to their communities? There are lots of questions and just as many answers. Many find themselves walking a tightrope.
To get a clearer picture of just what black broadcasters are faced with on a daily basis, the L.A. Watts Times went straight to the source, asking local black broadcasters these questions:
As an insider, what is your perspective on how the media covers the black community? Have you attempted to contribute toward covering the black community?
BEVERLY WHITE (NBC4 anchor/reporter) — “I can only speak for the electronic media, which I believe adequately covers the black community but can do much more. The industry should employ more black people (in front of and behind the camera) and encourage diversity in sourcing and in story selection.
The responsibility to cover our community without fear or favor must never rest solely with black reporters. I pitch ideas and handle all manner of assignments. My non-black counterparts should do the same. Anyone who knows my work knows I try to cover the black community every way I can — with contacts who enhance my storytelling beyond race and sports, or entertainment and crime. I keep an eye out for distinct voices from mudslides to market issues, violence to Valentine’s Day. I strive to include people who look like me because it deepens my reporting and often helps defy stereotypes, one sound bite at a time. I see that as my mission as an African American journalist.”
TONY COX (NPR “News and Notes” host) — “How the media covers the black community depends on which media you’re referring to. The mainstream press doesn’t cover the black community at all. It looks for stories of general interest, and if those happen to involve black folks in particular, then chances are you’ll see something written or broadcast.
And even that depends on what market your outlet is in and how large the black audience is. The black press covers the black community all the time. They just don’t have the resources to cover it as effectively as is sometimes warranted. And because the black press has to compete for advertising dollars, like all media, their story selection is often dictated by what sells and will generate the most revenue. That’s when even the black press becomes more selective about what it does and doesn’t cover. In the end, the black community suffers either way.”
CHRIS SCHAUBLE (NBC4 anchor) — “The media does a poor and shallow job of covering the African American community (myself included). However, it’s due mostly to a lack of resources that all newsrooms face, as opposed to a willful disregard. As TV newsrooms shift to the concept of photojournalists (reporters carrying their own cameras while also presenting the story), there will be more of us beating the street. I think there will be more room for the individual newsperson to influence coverage ... more stories, yes the positive ones, will get told.
I find that while I cannot always influence news coverage, I can make sure the African American community knows it has my support. I emcee countless events within the black community and only say no when it conflicts with another engagement (or when my wife tells me to slow it down).”
MARC BROWN (ABC7 anchor) — “Having grown up in Los Angeles, I have watched the evolution of the news media’s coverage of the African American community. It used to be fairly one-dimensional and primarily negative. It no longer is. I feel very good about how ABC7, in particular, covers the black community. We try to cover African Americans, as we do every other community in Los Angeles, with fairness, sensitivity and across a broad spectrum.
We’re able to do it because we have a very diverse staff both in front of and behind the camera. Some of the stories I’ve covered over the last few months include the Eso Won Bookstore and its struggle to survive, an African American funeral director in South L.A. who handles victims of gang violence, and the inauguration of Barack Obama. These stories, while of special significance to African Americans, I believe are important to everyone.”
BOBBY HOWE (KTYM radio – public affairs director) — “Black press should give equal time to the good done by blacks and less to the not-so-good… I am on air 10-15 times a week, and I present the ‘Other Side of War’ and ‘Conversations with the Community.’ There is always the good, the bad and the ugly. I make sure I talk to the good being done in our community, but if I must report on the ugly, I make sure I have some solutions to the bad news.”
I myself find reporting news from the Black community a task in itself. However,those brothers and sisters who are dedicated to get the news to us are stressed.They feel like their backs are against the wall. Most of our news is indeed compromised. In the perpective Black News Reporters articles are edited to fit the needs of their paper.This practice is disabling, Omitting pertinent information,and preventing the full story from reaching the masses. They also, feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. For the reporters themself don't want to be stereo-type as the only one's capable of covering news in the Black communities. One part of the Catch 22 is,would'nt they better serve the community by covering these type of stories? Do you feel someone other than a african american could be just as fair and straight to the point of reporting all the truth?
What do you think?
Below Black Reporters Sound off. _______
Black Broadcasters Sound Off On Covering Black Community
Mar 01, 2009
Unfair, unbalanced and the overabundance of negative reporting about the black community has often been a complaint among many. There is concern that not only does such reporting paint an inaccurate portrait of a particular ethnic group, but it also sets a dangerous pattern.
Images shown by the media play a role in influencing attitudes toward blacks. Many in the community believe that the over-use of negative images has resulted in a lack of confidence when it comes to entrusting outsiders to tell the black community’s story.
So the question becomes: Are black journalists the only ones capable of accurately and fairly reporting on the black community? Or is the black reporter caught in a Catch-22, stuck between getting it right for his or community and being professionally pigeon holed? If they cover only the black community, they run the danger of becoming known as a reporter who can only cover black stories. If they cover only the mainstream stories, they’d be entrusting someone else to tell the black community’s story.
Should their loyalties be to their media outlets or to their communities? There are lots of questions and just as many answers. Many find themselves walking a tightrope.
To get a clearer picture of just what black broadcasters are faced with on a daily basis, the L.A. Watts Times went straight to the source, asking local black broadcasters these questions:
As an insider, what is your perspective on how the media covers the black community? Have you attempted to contribute toward covering the black community?
BEVERLY WHITE (NBC4 anchor/reporter) — “I can only speak for the electronic media, which I believe adequately covers the black community but can do much more. The industry should employ more black people (in front of and behind the camera) and encourage diversity in sourcing and in story selection.
The responsibility to cover our community without fear or favor must never rest solely with black reporters. I pitch ideas and handle all manner of assignments. My non-black counterparts should do the same. Anyone who knows my work knows I try to cover the black community every way I can — with contacts who enhance my storytelling beyond race and sports, or entertainment and crime. I keep an eye out for distinct voices from mudslides to market issues, violence to Valentine’s Day. I strive to include people who look like me because it deepens my reporting and often helps defy stereotypes, one sound bite at a time. I see that as my mission as an African American journalist.”
TONY COX (NPR “News and Notes” host) — “How the media covers the black community depends on which media you’re referring to. The mainstream press doesn’t cover the black community at all. It looks for stories of general interest, and if those happen to involve black folks in particular, then chances are you’ll see something written or broadcast.
And even that depends on what market your outlet is in and how large the black audience is. The black press covers the black community all the time. They just don’t have the resources to cover it as effectively as is sometimes warranted. And because the black press has to compete for advertising dollars, like all media, their story selection is often dictated by what sells and will generate the most revenue. That’s when even the black press becomes more selective about what it does and doesn’t cover. In the end, the black community suffers either way.”
CHRIS SCHAUBLE (NBC4 anchor) — “The media does a poor and shallow job of covering the African American community (myself included). However, it’s due mostly to a lack of resources that all newsrooms face, as opposed to a willful disregard. As TV newsrooms shift to the concept of photojournalists (reporters carrying their own cameras while also presenting the story), there will be more of us beating the street. I think there will be more room for the individual newsperson to influence coverage ... more stories, yes the positive ones, will get told.
I find that while I cannot always influence news coverage, I can make sure the African American community knows it has my support. I emcee countless events within the black community and only say no when it conflicts with another engagement (or when my wife tells me to slow it down).”
MARC BROWN (ABC7 anchor) — “Having grown up in Los Angeles, I have watched the evolution of the news media’s coverage of the African American community. It used to be fairly one-dimensional and primarily negative. It no longer is. I feel very good about how ABC7, in particular, covers the black community. We try to cover African Americans, as we do every other community in Los Angeles, with fairness, sensitivity and across a broad spectrum.
We’re able to do it because we have a very diverse staff both in front of and behind the camera. Some of the stories I’ve covered over the last few months include the Eso Won Bookstore and its struggle to survive, an African American funeral director in South L.A. who handles victims of gang violence, and the inauguration of Barack Obama. These stories, while of special significance to African Americans, I believe are important to everyone.”
BOBBY HOWE (KTYM radio – public affairs director) — “Black press should give equal time to the good done by blacks and less to the not-so-good… I am on air 10-15 times a week, and I present the ‘Other Side of War’ and ‘Conversations with the Community.’ There is always the good, the bad and the ugly. I make sure I talk to the good being done in our community, but if I must report on the ugly, I make sure I have some solutions to the bad news.”
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