(Read the first Black Lives DON’T Matter )
The slogan Black Lives Matter is one of those empty slogans that sound good, but say nothing and go nowhere. Black lives matter! And? So what? It’s also a racist slogan if we ask, ”If Black lives matter which lives don’t?”
Compare the BLM-slogan to:
”Thou shall not kill!“
”Thou shall not shoot unarmed people.”
”Murder by police is still murder”
… and any number of slogans that say something.
Why not point out that
Killing an unarmed person could be an accident.
Killing two unarmed people could be an accident and a mistake.
Killing a hundred unarmed people is the signature of a death squad,
and the main tactic to promote division among people.
Who is the BLM-slogan directed to?
The murdering goons?
The authorities who don’t prosecute them?
The Black president under whose watch more Black people have been murdered and imprisoned than any other president in recent times?
Wake the fuck up, brothers and sisters! Ain’t nobody going to help you. No one is going to give you justice. Same-o, same-o for all the people, regardless of color, creed or bend, paying dues to the corporate commanders (the 1%) squeezing ever more profit from sweat, blood, pain and despair.
Vengence may be sweet and retaliation desirable, but attacking the institutions of power is suicide. It won’t work. Use instead the power you do have to do what you can to help each other.
Any poor neighborhood contains many people who acquire and maintain an unhealthy body by consuming corporate junk products while aiding the wealth of corporations. Teach and help the people to make their own food and drink plain water, as opposed to the expensive and unhealthy artificial soft poisons peddled by the real oppressors as the real thing. Not revolutionary enough? That’s proof of the need of an education that official schooling will not provide. Who is going to teach our youth if not ourselves. The schools are as much institutions of the prevailing power as are the police. Isn’t it time that the Black people do for health and education what they did for music and dance? Jazz health and Break-dance education!
And isn’t it time for everyone to do what Jesus and Mohammed did for unity and solidarity? Realize our sameness under one God, or in the face of life’s holiness, or through the spirit of humanity, or by the grace of universal love.
All lives matter.
Amen!
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“Man was … given a Will,
So that his acts should reflect God’s universal Will and Law,
And his mind, freely choosing,
Should experience the sublime joy
Of being in harmony with the Infinite,
And with the great drama of the world around him,
And with his own spiritual growth.”
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 1934
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I just read the speech, sorry, “the remarks” that John Kerry made at the World Economic Forum in January of this year, and want to share a couple of the laugh-or-barf comments.
There are no grounds of history, religion, ideology, grievance, psychology, politics, economic disadvantage, or personal ambition that will ever justify the murder of children, the kidnapping and the rape of teenage girls, or the slaughter of unarmed civilians, whether for ideology or for some false religious assertion – none. No matter the input, this kind of atrocity can really never be rationalized; these kinds of actions can never be excused; and they have to be opposed with every fiber of our being. They have to be stopped.
Can you believe this guy? If hypocrisy were a religion Kerry would be its Pope. Can this Secretary of State be unaware that his state has been drone-and-hellfire-missile killing children and unarmed civilians in several countries for years? He seems incapable of assuming that women and children must have been among the more than 1.000.000 people his state killed in its illegal war in Iraq. Not only is the state for which he is secretary world leader in slaughtering innocents, it even kills babies not yet born due to its generous use of DU (depleted uranium) weapons. (The UN produced a report about the effects of these weapons but Kerry’s state prevented it from being published.) Israel places second for numbers of killed kids and first in receiving aid from Kerry’s state.
What’s Kerry’s plan to oppose the killings with every fiber of his being?
And the place to begin is quite simply by defeating Daesh. Why? Because they are better armed, better trained, better funded, and have been more able to hold onto territory than any other terrorist group in history; because they directly threaten the peace and stability not of one group in Iraq, but of every single country in the region; and because they have further overtly threatened to take their threat around the globe and are working to do so. This is a threat to the entire structure that we have worked so hard to put in place since the end of World War II. It’s a threat to nation-states. It is a threat to rule of law. And freeing Iraq from its ruthless occupiers is the critical, crucial first turning point.
You’ve noticed by now that secretary John is linguistically challenged, but what is this “entire structure” he’s referring to? It’s the structure outlined in The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with the explicit goal “to promote American global leadership” (through economic and military dominance) because “American leadership is good for the world.”
John Secretary of State Kerry proves to be a superstar of arrogance and hubris as well as hypocrisy. There is no label however to put on the quote about the “ruthless occupiers”. It’s in a class by itself. The ruthless occupiers he is referring to are the surviving natives of the USA shock-and-awe war of aggression. These victims have, says the representative of a state with over 700 military bases throughout the world, “overtly threatened to take their threat around the globe”. If the natives are occupiers, what are the Americans? According to John, as expressed at the end of his remarks, they are champions of “the universal values of decency and civility, and knowledge and reason and law.”
Are you barfing of laughing? BTW, John does speak the truth at one point, by mistake. “We have to intensify our effort to defend violence in Nigeria”.
I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression of Mr. Kerry. Despite his astonishing proficiency in arrogance, hubris and hypocrisy, he’s not half as accomplished as his boss.
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“Dressing bullshit in flowery words makes it sound good,
but it doesn’t change the stink.”
Dartwill Aquila
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“The truth is hard but I’m gonna tell it!
There’s a whole lot of ways to sell it!”
– Tom Paxton (lyrics to The Hooker)
The “epidemic” of veteran and military suicides continues to harvest at least 22 lives a day. This official figure from the Veterans Administration is regarded as conservative. Yet even this “low” number points out that over 8000 suicides per year are killing far more US soldiers than all the world’s terrorists combined.
Commentators agree that PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) pushes the victims into the sleep of no return, but they haven’t a clue about how to deal with it. The chorus of confusion can be summed by David Wood’s article in Huffington Post (Aug. 29, 2013):
Military And Veteran Suicides Rise Despite Aggressive Prevention Efforts
The suicide numbers are rising despite a determined push by the Pentagon and the VA to connect troops to a proliferation of resources. These range from immediate crisis intervention, to specific therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of trauma, to broader mental health services, peer mentoring, resiliency training, and financial and relationship counseling.
This isn’t standard bullshit, but shit from an elephant with diarrhea. More than many scandals have shown us that veterans are treated as junk once their usefulness in the field has been exhausted. The real problem, the elephant in the public room, seems to remain hidden from the media in spite of its stink. Replace the word “despite” in title above with “because of” and the elephant appears trumpeting its sickening truth.
The miles of print about PSTD and the suicides contain not a word about Pharma (Big Pharmaceutical Corporations). Yet the drugs prescribed to the soldiers and veterans are the most likely cause of the suicides as well as their deaths by accident (2-5 times as many traffic deaths as the general population), and the extreme numbers of homicides committed against family, lovers and friends.
Two quotes from Martha Rosenberg’s book (2012) can sum up the case. Born With a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks, and Hacks Pimp the Public Health
1. Chad Oligschlaeger was prescribed a cocktail of drugs, Zolpidem (sleeping pill); Trazodone (antidepressant); Prozac and Zoloft (antidepressants); propranolol (blood-pressure); larazepam and clonazepam (anti-anxiety)); Chantix (antismoking) and Seroquel.
He died of “accidental” death due to multiple-drug toxicity according to the official report. When his mother showed the medical records to a doctor from Texas A&M University, she said; “You realize the military killed your son. Don’t you? The drugs Chad was taking should only have been prescribed in a clinical setting, and even then, not prescribed together.”2. Tales of over medication are the rule, not the exception.
Martha documents how Pharma aggressively (and illegally) pushes pills to maintain the flow of profits into the multi-billion dollar drug business. The industry works on the “Monsanto Principle”: Disregard laws, rules, regulations and concern for people! Should you get caught, the fine will be easily affordable.
Pharma employs troops of doctors-for-hire who verify and promote medications. They plant articles in prestigious journals; conduct sloppy research to hide rather than illustrate the effects of drugs; sit on key committees and take part in conferences. With billion-dollar profits pouring in, Pharma can afford to shower medical experts, politicians and government institutions with millions.
The military didn’t kill Chad Oligschlaeger, Pharma did. Distinguished board members in designer clothes and spotless hands killed Chad, along with 10s of 1000s of his comrades, as surely as if they had slit their throats. They continue to do so as witnessed by the continued suicides, accidents and homicides.
The section about Pharma targeting the military market accounts for a small part of Martha Rosenburg’s book. She shows that like a beast of prey, Pharma prefers to attack the young, the weak and the sick. Because of Pharma’s efforts millions of children are now designated as sick, deficient and disturbed—because they act like children. With the right medication, these kids can be “helped” to act like calm and passive (drugged) small individuals. Some of them may commit suicide, but hey, a little collateral damage must be expected.
Pharma is not particularly evil as far as corporations go. Pharma does what corporations do. It hunts profits. All other considerations, be it to people, the environment or the future, play a minor role.
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“No blood can be seen on their well-manicured hands.
It’s their greed-diseased souls that are splattered with blood.”
Dartwill Aquila
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ICH (Information Clearing House), despite its many merits, seems intent on promoting the AIPAC lobby myth, which claims that Israel determines US foreign policy. The latest article propagating the myth flags the title, On Bended Knee to Netanyahu (Nov. 8/9, 2015). The explanatory text above the link to the article itself reads, Official Washington’s liberal establishment is on bended knee in an obsequious show of obeisance.
Once we click on the link, the title and the explanatory text greets us again. Four times we see ”on bended knee” (to Netanyahu) before we get into the article.
Basic rule of propaganda: Repeat, repeat and repeat.
Basic technique of propaganda: Put the message up front regardless of what is said in the article.
Pay attention now, Dorothy! Here’s the entire text below the title introducing the article:
Despite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s in-your-face attempts to sabotage President Obama’s foreign policy, Official Washington’s liberal establishment is on bended knee in an obsequious show of obeisance, apparently in line with Hillary Clinton’s political wishes, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Paul R. Pillar never writes this in the article, there is no such thing as Official Washington, and the liberal establishment, mentioned once, turns out to be a single think tank: ”even a paragon of the liberal establishment such as the Center for American Progress (CAP) is welcoming Netanyahu into its spaces”.
If we click on the ”is welcoming” link, we come to Huffington Post telling us that CAP is a progressive organization. They don’t tell us that this progressive organization receives funding from the United Arab Emirates, Walmart, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Northrup Grumman, Eli Lilly and other big corporations as well a handful of billionaires such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, Herb Sandler and a pot full of mere multimillionaires. Progressives!
AIPAC tail wags the USA foreign policy dog
As the United Arab Emirates and the corporations just named each have a lobbying budget many times more than AIPAC’s we should regard the claim of their bending knees as seriously as the claim of their progressiveness. It seems more likely to me that Netanyahu has been commanded to appear in CAP’s ”spaces” to receive his latest marching orders. That would put the dog in charge of the tail. I, however, am no expert like PR Pillar who tells us the opposite, that the AIPAC tail determines the direction of the USA foreign policy dog.
PR Pillar is not merely an ex-CIA analyst. He spent nearly three decades as a top CIA specialist in terrorism, foreign policy and educating the public. A lot can be said about Pillar, but it should be sufficient to name that he now writes for The National Interest, whose honorary chairman is Henry Kissinger. Another liberal progressive? Just asking. Don’t expect me to get down on my knees and beg for an answer.
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“Neither saints or experts are needed to kill a dragon,
anyone with sharp words and true thrust can do it.”
Dartwill Aquila
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The USA terrorists bomb hospitals and kill doctors and patients.
These terrorists also bomb wedding parties and kill brides, grooms and happiness.
They drone and hellfire-bomb homes in rural districts killing kids, cousins and carpenters. They kill millions of people, maim even more and destroy homes, shops, schools, factories, power plants, water supplies, roads, bridges and sacred ground.
They do this and more year after year in many places.
These terrorists, who admit to using terror (shock and awe), claim to do their horrible deeds in order to fight terrorism.
Attention people of privilege and authority! You cannot claim to be unaware of this, and you can’t pretend stupidity to avoid the consequences of your complicity. No one is so stupid as to believe that you can kill and terrorize people to save them from terrorism.
Accusing the Victims
Attention everyone else! The aggressive, occupying and suppressing rulers have always, without exception, spoken of the horrible nature of the suppressed people. The British assured the subjects of England that the colonial resistance fighters in the American colonies were despicable, filthy, uncivilized, vicious and cruel degenerates. These “lords” of England also told us, in chorus with the other colonial occupiers, that Africans were subhuman, lazy, stupid, dirty, immoral apes. The patriots who liberated themselves from the British domination went on to kill Native Americans and steal their land while speaking of the bloodthirsty and bestial character of the “red skins”. We need go no further than today’s Israelis to hear the Palestinians described as rats and insects, or, as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, says, “evil and damnable” and worthy of annihilation. Listen to the Israeli journalist David Sheen.
The present terrorists of the American empire follow in the footsteps of their predecessors down through the ages. The victims of their aggression and terror are the bad guys, the vicious monsters, the evil and damnable degenerates worthy of death and annihilation. The great majority of the “progressive” or leftist intellectuals fall right in line with the propaganda of empire, amplifying and echoing the condemnation of the victims. They repeat matter-of-factly that the natives who survived the massive death and destruction of the invading super terrorists are the real problem. They are trying to take back their own country. What monsters!
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“History doesn’t care if we learn from it or not.
It’s going to bury us in any case.”
Dartwill Aquila
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I received an email with the words of Andy Rooney, another one of the many feel-good mongers. These peddlers of emotional pornography, happiness out of context, encourage us to take aspartame coated thought pills to ease our pain and anxiety instead of engaging in the struggle for justice and life raging around us.
I’ve tried to stem my disgust by responding to Rooney’s “learned” words.
I’ve learned …. That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.
Who wants to be in a classroom? When learning from someone, face to face or shoulder to shoulder are the preferred positions. A dog or slave sits at your feet. Do dim elderly people have more to teach than clever young ones?
I’ve learned …. That when you’re in love, it shows.
When you’re in hate, anger, depression or despair shows as well.
I’ve learned …. That just one person saying to me, ‘You’ve made my day!’ makes my day.
What if that one person is Dirty Harry?
I’ve learned …. That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one
of the most peaceful feelings in the world.
What’s the feeling of having a bloody dead child in your arms or one that is screaming in burning pain?
I’ve learned …. That being kind is more important than being right.
And having a right arm is more important than having a left leg, and that doing what is right is more important than producing banalities.
I’ve learned …. That you should never say no to a gift from a child.
You obviously have a very limited experience of receiving gifts from kids, particularly the slimy kind.
I’ve learned …. That I can always pray for someone when I don’t have
the strength to help him in some other way.
That might help you, but it’s not going to do much for the “him” you pray for.
I’ve learned …. That no matter how serious your life requires you to
be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.
I don’t require or expect goofiness from my friends or reject it when it comes.
I’ve learned …. That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.
When both of you are handcuffed you might prefer other needs.
I’ve learned …. That simple walks with my father around the block on
summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.
How do you know? You might be a better person if you did something else. From what I can see, it’s made you simple. Proof of this can be seen in the next statement.
I’ve learned …. That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
“Life is like a roll of toilet paper”!? This supports my initial impression of what you are full of.
I’ve learned …. That we should be glad God doesn’t give us everything we ask for.
Do you know anyone who has gotten anything they asked for from God?
I’ve learned …. That money doesn’t buy class.
I guess you haven’t seen Pretty Woman.
I’ve learned …. That it’s those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular …
as well as irritating and boring.
I’ve learned … That under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.
This explains everything. Everyone doesn’t have a hard shell. You must be a snail or a clam.
I’ve learned …. That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.
The purpose of ignoring facts is not to change them but to avoid, deny or hide them.
I’ve learned …. That love, not time, heals all wounds.
How about the wounds that heal without love? Some wounds heal better with a few stitches than all the love in the world.
I’ve learned …. That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is
to surround myself with people smarter than I am.
You must be enormous.
I’ve learned …. That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.
Even pedophiles, serial killers and politicians?
I’ve learned …. That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.
Nobody becomes perfect because someone falls in love with them and nobody falls in love with a perfect person.
I’ve learned … That life is tough, but I’m tougher.
The last I heard life is still here and you’re gone. Imagining yourself to be tougher than life must be the height of arrogance.
I’ve learned …. That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.
Ignoring the facts again, are we?
I’ve learned …. That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.
How about the people who are bitter because someone destroyed their happiness?
I’ve learned …. That one should keep his words both soft and tender,
because tomorrow he may have to eat them.
Is this a recommendation to only use junk words, avoid hard facts and don’t speak sharp truths?
I’ve learned …. That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain,
but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.
You’ve learned the everyone wants to live on top of the mountain?
And that they’re happy to make a long climb just to get home? Now I understand these words of learned wisdom you’ve been feeding us. You’re from another world.
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“Pretty thoughts can hide ugly realities.
So can booze and crack.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Third-party technique refers to an organization financing individuals and groups that promote its interests. The main organization is characteristically a corporation and the front group can be any establishment, institute, foundation, think tank, charity, school or whatever. These groups, often created by the mother organization, appear to be independent. The individuals can be any authority from a journalist to a rent-a-professor. Leading PR experts have spoken about the essential role of this technique.
Rampto and Stauber in their book Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future estimate that as much as 50% of public information radiates from third-parties. If we view the media as a third-party, which we should as it is owned by a handful of corporations, and the government as a third party controlled by corporations through lobbying, the percentage of third-party information extends far beyond 50%.
Israel is a third-party of the USA, particularly the military segment. It functions as a colonial outpost of the empire. Always has. The mentally challenged Zionists are not only unaware of their dependence on and service to the empire, they even believe themselves to be in charge. They are not alone in this belief. One doesn’t have to be a Zionist to be mentally challenged.
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“The 1% own 99% of the say.”
Dartwill Aquila
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”Russia has been methodically wiping out Washington’s mercenaries on the ground while recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists.”
Mike Whitney in Counterpunch; Oct. 29, 2015
”Recapturing”?
How can something never possessed be recaptured?
Mike means that the wiped out (really?) mercenary terrorists leave the land open to be retaken by the Syrian government. This article, as almost all articles about the war, reads like a review of a video war game. The explosive blasts of fire and steel don’t seem to affect daddies, grandmas and kids. It’s a war without people, just ”homicidal maniacs” on the ground and powerful war machines in the air. If the mercenaries are wiped out and the ”targets” destroyed, what’s left to recapture?
The ”homicidal maniacs” that Mike refers to are IS forces. What’s the difference between ”Washington’s mercenaries”, ”the terrorists” and the ”homicidal maniacs”? Semantics. Same people, different angles. In the same article Mike tells us,
”the US decided to bomb Aleppo’s main power plant last week plunging the entire city into darkness … Keep in mind, that the local water treatment plants require electrical power, so by blowing up the plant, Obama has condemned tens of thousands of civilians to cholera and other water-born diseases. Apparently, our hospital-nuking president isn’t bothered by such trivial matters as killing women and children.”
Do hold your breath waiting for the mass killer of women and children to be called a homicidal maniac or any other goony label. These are reserved exclusively for the people resisting the freedom-loving hospital nukers, city destroyers and cholera spreaders.
So what’s happening in Syria? The US has been pushing its position ever closer to Russia. Syria is one such position. Ukraine was the last straw. Russia strikes back in Syria. ”Enough!” says Russia. To underline the strength of its statement, it launches a few cruise missiles from inside Russia and strikes targets with impressive precision in Syria. Washington got the message and pulled its aircraft carriers out of the area. Now Russia will continue to blast away at mercenaries attacking Syria until the Yanks come to the conference table and at least promise to stop antagonizing Russian interests. Syria, in other words, is the front line in a military confrontation between Russia and the USA. The political, cultural and ECONOMIC battle proceeds and accelerates to the east where a country called China is involved on Russia’s side.
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“A (USA) citizen’s duty, whether in time of war or elections, is now, at best, to watch the show, or at worst, to see nothing at all.”
Tom Engelhardt
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Terror means strong fear and nothing generates more fear in the world than the USA government. It promotes fear in Americans to justify military enterprises abroad and admittedly (shock and awe) employs terror against anyone who gets in the way of its ambitions. It bombs weddings, hospitals and schools and kills millions of people including babies and babushkas. Yet nobody speaks of these terrorists as terrorists.
Because they are terrified.
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“The object of terrorism is terrorism.
The object of oppression is oppression.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of murder is murder.
The object of power is power.
Now do you begin to understand me?”
George Orwell
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44 Palestinians have been killed, 1300 injured and 650 imprisoned so far this October. Most of the dead were around 20 years old. Here are the names of those under 18:
Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, 17
Bassem Bassam Sidr, 17
Mo’taz Ahmad ‘Oweisat, 16
Hassan Khalid Manassra, 15
Mohammad Hisham al-Roqab, 15
Khalil Omar Othman, 15
Ahmad Abedullah Sharakka, 13
Marwan Hisham Barbakh, 13
Abdul-Rahma Obeidallah, 11
Rahaf Yihiya Hassan, 2
I wonder if ”why” was among Rahaf’s first words.
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“One is significant only for what one gives, not for what one takes.”
Mencius, Chinese philosopher, contemporary of Plato
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System Humanity 