What America Needs

Predictably, the Right Wing of this country is trying to politicize the theater massacre in Colorado, and to accuse others of doing the same.

It is true that a lot of people are asking, "Shouldn't we have laws that outlaw ownership of assault rifles and 100-round magazines" as a start of ending the serial mass murders afflicting us.  Some even call for some kind of ban on manufacturing any weapons in America that are designed to kill human beings.  Others question why our society does not spend more on mental health resources.

However, these are not "political" statements, in the sense of scoring points for a particular "side" of partisan politics or ideology; they are honest questions and rational thoughts addressing this terrible problem.

On the other hand, the Right Wing does, indeed, react to such ideas as an attack on their political ideology and agenda which must be aggressively defended, and are using their verbal and written counter-attacks as a way of "stirring up the base" of Right Wing supporters in their quest for political power.  When they attack their more rational opponents for "politicizing the tragedy," it is mere projection of their own prejudices on others.

The Right Wing is interested in protecting gun ownership.  Many of their spokespeople hold gun ownership and their interpretation of the Second Amendment as something sacred, something that the God of the universe intends--at least for Americans.  Many even, particularly lately, openly proclaim that it is a "Christian duty" to own guns and to become proficient in their use--in other words, their function as killing tools.  This near-deification of guns blinds and deafens them to any rational arguments against their belief system, or even honest questions that might expose the errors of their position.

"The best defense is a good offense" is a concept deeply rooting in the Right Wing mind.  What they mean by a "good offense" is always, in some form or another, involves violence, deception, and the use of logical fallacies, particularly ad hominem and ad ignorantiam arguments, and arguments from authority.(see http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx)

The past few days have seen the Right Wing blame everything for the massacre except the one thing that most made it possible and so horrific--the assault rifle.  Right Wingers have blamed it on the fact that not every American is armed and trained to kill, or the theater, which did not allow guns inside.  Gun regulations in general were scapegoated.  One even blamed the fact that the shooter, James Holmes, was receiving unemployment benefits and had had a federal grant; the argument is that the Federal Government (i.e., Obama) facilitated Holmes.

But the part of their "blame game" that is most galling, comes from their deep self-righteousness.  What they assert is that because so many Americans are not Christian in the way that the Right Wing conceives it, implying that the massacre was God's punishment.

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert said the attack was the result of an attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and that the killings might have been avoided if the country returned to the ways of God.   "You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

Mike Huckabee, the sanctimonious ex-Arkansaw governor, was even more explicit.  He was quoted as saying that  we don't have a gun problem or a crime problem, but a "sin problem" and blames--what else--a mythical encroaching secularization.

“Ultimately,” Huckabee concluded, “We don't have a crime problem or a gun problem – or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we ordered God out of our schools and communities, the military and public conversations, you know, we really shouldn't act so surprised when all hell breaks loose.”

Of course, the United States DOES have a problem with guns and violence, as described in the previous post.  And what an odd god it is that could be "ordered" out of our public life.  Muslims are supposed to know--as are true Christians--that Allah (SWT) is everywhere, throughout the Universe He created, and gives the orders to us, not the other way around.

Further, Huckabee and the others are correct when they talk about the sins in this country, but they have as inadequate understanding of sin as they have of the Creator and Lord of All."  They see sin only in terms of personal morality, everything from premarital sex to homosexuality to having Liberal ideas.

Allah knows that level of sin, surely, but there are other levels.  In Allah's (SWT) message to us in the Old and New Testament, and certainly the Quran and the Sunnah, of even more significance is placed on what the Right Wing sneeringly call "social justice."  Submitters to the Will of Allah (SWT) are expected to protect the poor by creating economic justice, helping the oppressed by defeating tyranny, and ending war and militarism.

Another Right Wing leader from Liberty University began an e-mail today with the words, "America needs God...now more than ever!"  Instead, what America--and the world--needs is for Muslims (and People of the Book) to ACT, to put into practice, to DO the things our Rabb commands.  The world has too much religiosity; what it needs is for people to allow Allah (SWT) to work through them to defeat social AND personal sins.

In other words, America needs Islam...now, more than ever!

Our Culture of "Normal" Violence and Death

The story about the tragic shooting of 70 people in a movie theatre continues in the news.  So does our mainstream American society's cultural denial about the kind of nation in which we live.

In the immediate aftermath, Colorado Governor Hickenlooper made a statement.  His voice quaking with disbelief and shock, he said, "Aurora is a safe city.  Colorado is a safe state.  We live in a safe nation."  How, he was in effect, can something like this massacre happen here."  He later called the shootings that took place during a screening of the newest Batman movie an "act that defies description."

He must live in an alternative dimension or universe, because if there is anything true about our nation, it is that in many ways we are NOT safe, and mass shootings such as the assault on movie-goers are so common as to be un-suprising, not an "act that defies description."

And normal.  Think about that.  When hurricanes or tornadoes kill, we may mourn, but they are normal events in nature which we accept.  In the aftermath of mass killings, many realize that since other nations have deterred gun violence, the U.S. ought to be able do, also,  We talk about gun control schemes, but powerful interests keep them from becoming law, so we are forced to accept our high murder rate as normal, unpredictable as the weather, and there's nothing we can do about it except gather together in the aftermath to help the victims.  And then we retreat into denial, until the next calamity.

To refresh the memory of Gov. Hickenlooper and others like him, here is a listing of only some of the mass murders, from a blog posting by Darcy Burner entitled, "An Adult Conversation About Guns":

On January 17, 1989, a gunman in Stockton, California walked onto a playground and opened fire, killing 5 children and injuring 30 more.

On July 1, 1993, a gunman in San Francisco walked into a law office and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 6.

On April 20, 1999, two gunmen in Columbine, Colorado walked into their high school and opened fire, killing 13 people and injuring 21 others.

On January 16, 2002, a gunman in Virginia walked into a law school and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 3.

On July 8, 2003, a gunman in Mississippi walked into a factory and opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 8.

On March 21, 2005, a gunman in Minnesota walked into a high school and opened fire, killing 7 and injuring 5.

On November 20, 2005, a gunman in Tacoma walked into the mall and opened fire, injuring 6.

On March 25, 2006, a gunman in Seattle walked into a party and opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 2.

On February 12, 2007, a gunman in Utah walked into a mall and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 4.

On April 16, 2007, a gunman in Virginia walked onto the Virginia Tech campus and opened fire, killing 32 people and wounding 17 others.

On December 5, 2007, a gunman in Nebraska walked into a mall and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 4.

On December 9, 2007, a gunman in Colorado Springs walked onto a church parking lot and opened fire, killing 2 and wounding 3.

On February 7, 2008, a gunman in Missouri walked into a city council meeting and opened fire, killing 5 and wounding 2.

On February 14, 2008, a gunman in Illinois walked onto a college campus and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 17.

On June 25, 2008, a gunman in Kentucky walked into a factory and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 1.

On January 24, 2009, a gunman in Portland walked up to a nightclub and opened fire, killing 2 and injuring 7.

On March 29, 2009, a gunman in North Carolina walked into a retirement home and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 2.

On August 4, 2009, a gunman in a suburb of Pittsburgh walked into a fitness club and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 9.

On November 5, 2009, a gunman at Fort Hood in Texas walked into a medical center and opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 29.

On November 29, 2009, a gunman in Lakewood, Washington walked into a coffee shop and killed 4 police officers.

On January 7, 2010, a gunman in St Louis walked into a power plant and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 6.

On January 12, 2010, a gunman in Georgia walked into a truck rental place and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 2.

On February 12, 2010, a gunwoman in Alabama stood up in a college faculty meeting and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 3.

On August 3, 2010, a gunman in Connecticut walked into a warehouse and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 2.

On August 7, 2011, a gunman in Ohio broke into his girlfriend’s house and opened fire, killing 7 and injuring 1.

On September 6, 2011, a gunman in Nevada walked into a pancake restaurant and opened fire, killing 4 and injuring 7.

On October 5, 2011, a gunman in Cupertino, California walked into a quarry where people were working and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 7.

These tragedies make national news, especially the ones with the highest body counts.

What is missing from this list and Gov. Hickenlooper's mindset are the shootings of Black and Hispanic people--mostly young men and children--every day in our inner cities.  Most are killed by other Black and Hispanic young men, but police officers and security workers add to the death toll significantly.  Many of these killings, which greatly outnumber the number of whites murdered, are never reported for more than 30 seconds on local evening news, and some not at all.  Even when these shootings are of multiple people, almost none make national news.  But they and the families that loved them count as victims, too, except that 

Violence has become a major and ubiquitous part of the American popular culture, and has always been a factor in it.  Films portraying violence are as old as the film industry, especially in Westerns and crime movies, which are among the most viewed.  The "good guys" (and even some of the "bad guys") were glamorized in the movies, and war was portrayed as heroic.  

Before the late 1960's, when a character on the screen was shot, there was little or no blood from the "wound."  Many of my peers who fought in Korea and Vietnam went off to war with a subconscious belief that when someone got shot, he would get up when the director said "Cut," and go off to be in another movie.  Even if the hero was shot in the final reel, little blood was seen, and he would die almost peacefully, with his buddies around him.

That combination of glorifying war and hiding the reality of blood and suffering that comes with real war, conditioned millions of young men to look forward to fighting in a war.  They were conditioned by movies to be blinded to the gory, de-humanizing, and immoral realities of war.

In 1969, Director Sam Peckinpah directed a Western called "The Wild Bunch" with the goal of showing some of those realities, most pointedly of the blood and viscera that came from gunshots.  This he did, using realistic effects and a lot of slow motion.  From that point onward, Hollywood films and even television started using realistic depictions of shootings and death.

However, if people like Peckinpah expected Americans to be repulsed or disenchanted by these depictions, they were wrong.  Movie-goers now expect more and more gore and agony and death in our films, and expect television to show the same.  The more realistic, the better.

This "entertainment" has further conditioned most Americans-and those tainted by American culture--to be more jaded about killings, instead of being horrified by it.  That is why we are so accepting of deaths in the inner city.  That is why we feel nothing when "only" thousands die in a war, famine, or natural disaster; we only take suffering somewhat seriously when TENS of thousands or more die (although the darker the skin color of the people, the less we care, even if millions die, as in Somalia).  That is why we are accepting of the new policies of "rendition" and torture, and using an array of drones, piloted by people thousands of miles away

The "boot camps" of our armed services spend weeks molding civilians into soldiers.  Recruits are subjected to verbal and physical Pavlovian conditioning so they become proud "killing machines" which kill on command.  Another component of our violent culture--that affects pre-teens to young men--is the popularity of "games" based upon killing--sometimes monsters, but very often human beings.  Recognition as a high scorer and status among players are the rewards for becoming a deadly killer of images that become more life-like every season.  These games are played over and over for hours on end in the family home, which de-sensitizes our children to killing.  Although the majority have never used this conditioning our children and youth to shoot and hack and bomb people to death, but many of the rampages listed above were committed by teens or men who used what they had learned and practiced to actually kill.  For example, one expert observed that Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech,  performed like a trained professional,  an expert shot. "He had a 60% fatality rate with handguns," according to a professor of Criminology.

A final area of our violence-filled entertainment is the collecting of guns, both as hobbies and for shooting targets or hunting.  Millions of Americans own rifles and shotguns for hunting, and pistols for self-defence, but the guns most passionately defended by arms manufacturers and the rest of the "gun lobby" are military-quality assault rifles.  These are guns designed for no reason except to kill people.  The type of ammunition and magazines that can hold scores of bullets are of no use for hunting, except hunting men, women, and children, as happened at the Aurora theater July 20, 20012.

This madness must stop.  It will not be stopped by political leaders, because they are afraid of the consequences from the Gun Lobby.  It will not come from weapons manufacturers, because our corporation-run system is only interested in profits, not people.  It will not come from gun enthusiasts who practically deifies the gun as if it were a religious symbol rather than a lethal weapon.

Two things are needed for real, deep, and positive change,

First, people must rediscover the power of organized citizens to effect not just change, but transformation.  This is called "democracy"--"people rule."  The Occupy/99% Movement is a good start in this.

Second, the United States has clearly lost its moral compass, not just with this issue, but with nearly all of the culture.  Racism, economic un-equality, environmental destruction, immoral entertainment, too much power in the hands of too few, justice-for-sale, impure foodstuffs, religious bigotry, militarism--the list goes on an on.  The United States is in such deep trouble, that only Islam can change it.  Muslim Americans have the opportunity to organize, plan, strategize, and act as groups, as masjids, and in a national network, to be unified as an Ummah.  We need to agree on principles and solutions, and work with non-Muslims through "People Power" methods to change the heart of America, so that Allah (SWT) can heal us.

People Must ORGANIZE to Force Elites 

to Be Accountable to Them

A central aim of grassroots democracy is to hold members of local elites--mayors, school superintendents, police chiefs, developers, etc.--accountable for their actions to the citizens of the locality.

However, local elites do not operate in a vacuum; they are nodes in a larger network of governments, business interests, and militaries.  Because of this, grassroots democracy must also incorporate their activities with larger networks above the local level.  These networks must be strengthened, extended, and multiplied.

American elites, including Presidents, federal legislators, judges, bureaucrats, Wall Street bankers, insurance executives, media moguls, the military, and multi-national corporations make decisions every day that have a massive impact on our lives.  They have this impact not only as separate entities, but as interlocking networks.  This multiplies their power.  In the present circumstances of the world, this amount of power is unprecedented.  

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Lord John Dalton Action may have written that in 1887, but it is more true now than in any earlier era.  And the stakes are much higher.  Wars proliferate (and the US business elites profit from them), the greed of bankers ruins the financial lives of millions of people, global weather change threatens millions more because corporate elites do not want to pay for pollution prevention, and the threat of nuclear explosions by terrorists or militaries continues.  The power of the world's elites, led by Americans, and their quest for more profit and power is so vast that they have the potential for ending life as we know it.

The BP oil rig explosion and extractor rupture is only one example.  Although BP has spent millions on a public relations campaign to cover up the damage, not only has the event continuing to damage the Gulf of Mexico and neighboring areas, but if the rupture had not been capped, the scientific community warned that the oil could spread out of the Gulf and into the Atlantic, putting the fish population (and the humans that depend upon them) at risk.

Another example, though one that US media rarely mentions, is the 30-year devastation of the Niger Delta by Shell Oil.  Now, the US media rarely mentions this, because it and most Americans just do not care about Black Africans, so tragedies affecting them are not seen in the same way as bad things that happen to "real human beings" (white people, especially Americans).  Besides, we Americans value our oil supply far more than human beings (especially if they are black- or brown-skinned).  To see a glimpse of what Shell has done, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejym4mKelhM&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmI3xjZk_y0 .

In other words, geo-cide is a possibility, and greed-caused catastrophic events are inevitable.  Why?  Because of corporate greed and citizen inaction, which has resulted in a practical end to America as a democratic republic, and the creation of a plutocracy.  With laws passed under the excuse of the "War on Terror," citizens' rights have never been less secure, and we are becoming "one nation, under surveillence."  The next step is full-blown fascism.

Our only hope in avoiding such things is to ORGANIZE.  The Muslim Democratic Action Network is committed to teaching and motivating Muslims and non-Muslims to work together to reclaim America.  www.muslimaction.net

Three BAD Reasons for Muslims
NOT to ORGANIZE:

Three BAD reasons NOT to ORGANIZE:

1.  You think if you "keep your head low" enough, the bad times to come will not affect you.

2,  It sounds too "political" and, therefore, scary.

3.  You're doing OK financially now in America, and will be able to adapt to changing times.

WRONG!!!

Look around you:  Muslims are quite vulnerable in this nation, with the voices of hatred and intolerance growing louder and more powerful.  Remember that Black people were terrorized (lynchings) and oppressed for more that a century under Jim Crow laws and Japanese Americans were stripped of their property and imprisoned during WWII.  These things could happen to us.  To be American is to be political; the Constitution places the responsibility for governing this country in the hands of citizens--you and me!  Patriotism, then, requires that people organize politically and when necessary, protest the government's actions.  Democracy is not just voting--it is the Power of the People to be engaged in the government, culture, and economy around us, and to sometimes work to change them.

Finally, Islam is not a religion based upon selfish goals.  It is a Way of Life that pushes us to worship Allah (SWT) by actively seeking what is best for all around us, as well as ourselves.  Too much of the financial well-being of American Muslims comes from haram practices that are OK in America (selling booze, engaging in riba, assimilating into American culture, etc.), but deadly to our Deen.  Unless the American Ummah takes up the challenge and helps to transform America, beginning NOW, things will only get worse, our rights will be more endangered, and the destructiveness of the American Corporate System will continue to murder, exploit, and impoverish.


For 3 GOOD reasons for American Muslims to ORGANIZE, see below.

Israel the Model democracy, Most Moral Military--and Other Horse crap.

Did you ever notice that Zionists HATE it wen pro-Palestinian-types display signs using the word "Apartheid"?  "Israel is an Apartheid State" says one of the signs Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends carries at our weekly synagogue vigils in Ann Arbor.  "You dirty anti-Semites" is a common retort offered by those who attempt to heckle us.  Another is "How DARE you compare Israel to South Africa (under apartheid)!"  A third is simply the mantra, "Israel is NOT an apartheid state."

Well, maybe it IS unfair to compare Israel to South African apartheid--to South Africa, that is.  After all, as barbaric and brutal as the white supremacist South African government was--in severely segregating Blacks in "townships" and keeping them under strict curfew in "white areas," and frequently sending soldiers and jeeps into the townships to shoot people--they never bombed the townships with war planes, or shelled the people with artillery and tanks as the Israelis are wont to do to Palestinians in the "Occupied Territories."

Those and other differences aside, the core issue is that in South Africa until 1990, the white supremacist government  created discriminatory laws based on the view that Blacks and "mixed-race" people were inferior to whites, and must be kept as separate as possible and in total subjugation.

"Apartheid," you see, was the Afrikaner (the language of the whites) word for "separation."  It's the same concept as was  in the United States for almost a century in most parts of the country.  We called it "segregation" or "Jim Crow laws," and atrocities were committed by the white majority on Black individuals and communities regularly.

So, "apartheid" and "segregation" were systems of racial separation and discrimination.  If a wall had been built in South Africa to separate Blacks from "the superior race," it could have been called "the Apartheid Wall."  In the US, a similar wall would have been called the "Segregation Wall".

Now, in Israel, things are different.  Legal racism in South Africa and the US were discredited, vilified, and  scrapped decades ago.  It is shameful in those countries to defend in any way such policies, which the United Nations has formally outlawed as a crime against humanity.

But in Israel, the doctrine called "hafrada" in Hebrew, which means the same thing as "segregation" and "apartheid" is defended as absolutely necessary to the security of Jews.  That's why they erected what they call "the Separation Barrier/Fence," "Geder HaHafrada."

So the Zionist hecklers are wrong, lying, or deluded--take your pick:  Israel IS an Apartheid State.  If it is "anti-Semitic" to be truthful and morally consistent, then I guess I'm definitely anti-Semitic.

Israel is a racist state in a way that is totally incompatible with meaningful democracy and, for that matter, with the enduring ethical tenets of Judaism, particularly as set forth in the writings of the Prophets.

But somehow, although Zionists are taking the low road of morality, they have the high hand of power, and somehow manage to demonize those who want to end Israeli apartheid/hafrada/segregation as it was ended in South Africa and the US.

"Well, at least Jews aren't racist!"  I've heard people say that, and again, I can't decide if they are in denial, lying, or seriously deluded.  Whatever it is, they are wrong again.  Zionists and the Israeli leadership and US sycophants are expert in their ability to sound oh, so righteous while they twist facts, cover up atrocities, and defend the indefensible.  But every once in a while, the truth slips out, as it did on June 25 in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.  For years, Israel has allowed migrant workers and refugees from various parts of the world into Israel to provide cheap labor for dirty jobs.  Lately, however, Netanyahu's government has turned on them and is intent upon getting rid of them.  The State is currently rounding up and imprisoning tens of thousands of people--particularly those who fled from Sudan--and just passed a low allowing authorities to detain such people for up to three years without trial.  

But the kicker is that Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, is quoted as saying that most of the "Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man."  "I will continue the struggle until the end of my term, with no compromises," Yishai continued, stating that he would use "all the tools to expel the foreigners, until not one infiltrator remains."

The true colors of Netanyahu's Cabinet finally show--not white and baby blue, but the white of death and the red of blood, the colors of the Ku Klux Klan.

Three Good Reasons Why Muslims Must ORGANIZE--Politically, Economically. Morally, and In Alliance With People of Good Will:

1.  It is sunnah.  We usually think of sunnah as relating to praying and living our normal lives.  BUT--our Rasool (SAW) led the early Ummah to organize and re-organize a land filled with fitnah to one with humane laws, governance, customs, and way of life.  

2.  Allah (SWT) has placed American Muslims inside a nation which is filled with fitna and much in need of Muslims willing to live up to the example of the first Ummah.  Not only is the US. stipping away the rights of its own citizanes and allowing the super-rich to oppress them,  but with its military and economic might brings fitnah to the world.

3.  Our society is shifting dramatically, and which way it shifts will depend on which groups are most powerful.  Muslims now have almost no power, in the US. or the world. The ONLY way we can get power to use for the sake of Allah (SWT) is to ORGANIZE in ways that have worked well in American history and other places.

MDAN, Muslim Democracy Action Network, is based upon the teachings and examples of groups that successfully changed this nation, from Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Movement to the Labor Movement to women's right to vote, and many more.

For more info:  www.muslimaction.net or e-mail me at  ccd@provide.net

Muslims: Stand Up for Islam--Before It's Too Late!

 We face grave dangers as Muslims (from Islamaphobia and assimilation), as Americans (from a government growing more fascist and war-like every day)., and as human beings (from climate change and other man-made natural disasters).

We must ORGANIZE ourselves into a united, strong Ummah to protect our rights AND to help change America's moral values, priorities, and policies--politically, economically, and culturally.

But HOW do we do that?

American history is filled with grass-roots, truly democratic movements of common people who organized to acquire power to change their governments and society for the common good.  These successful movements provide MANY examples of strategies, tactics, and tools American Muslims can use to make changes in our government’s policies, particularly its  War on Terror, War on American rights, and support of Israel and its crimes.  WE CAN--AND MUST--LEARN THESE LESSONS!

, and www.muslim-action.blogspot.com.

"[Only] the Truth shall set you free." --Prophet Isa (AS), John 8:32

This is from Carol Nikolaisen: 

Some simple definitions:

Capitalism; The use of inherited/stolen Capital to accumulate private wealth.
Venture Capitalism; The risk of Other People's money to accumulate private wealth
Consume; to consume, as a flame, to eat, To Utterly Destroy.

There is a lie being told by the world's "economists", this the lie that we are all capitalists in a capitalist economy. The truth is that although the mass of the worlds population lives alongside the capitalist economy they do not actively benefit from capitalism except in a subsistence, working poor, wage slave kind of manner. These people have no Capital and no access to Venture Capital. The bulk of the world's population does not profit from any form of Capitalist enterprise. As well these people are unable to be consumers except at the very subsistence levels of existence. They buy little to no commodities, chose daily between meals and housing. Work for desperation wages while producing all the capitalist commodities, but being denied any of the benefits of said production.

Even though few truly benefit from capitalism, and rampant unregulated consumerism seems "hell bent for leather" to destroy the world's ecologic balance, most people, believing they are capitalists, will die defending the virtues of this lie based, slavery based, theft based system.

Capitalism developed from the death of the "aristocratic" system, which developed from the feudal system, etc., Capitalism developed from the primitive accumulation of wealth, which is a pretty way of saying the Colonial acquisition of land and workers by the forced occupation of said land. This said Colonialism generally led to either complete oppression of indigenous people, or the intentional genocide of said people. Wealth accumulated by force and fascism.
The saddest part of this issue is that even in light of all the talk of civil or human rights the actuality is that there are only rights for the wealthy, if you have not enough money to pay legal fees and court costs you have no right to legal protection. The rights in reality are for those who can afford to pay for the lobby.

As well the thefts of the "primitive accumulation of wealth" continue to this day "legally sanctioned" as long as the "project" is profitable to the ones paying the lobby groups. People living on the very brink of existence are further impoverished daily by those who have far more wealth then they could possibly ever need or use in a billion+ lifetimes.

Be revolutionary, plant a vegetable garden, share and trade, use a Credit Union, don't feed the Capitalist economy any more then absolutely necessary. Speak up while citizens are still allowed a voice, the citizen will be silenced soon enough.

2

Happy Birthday, Malcolm (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)

“I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think, it was, who said, ‘To be or not to be.’ He was in doubt about something -- whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune -- moderation -- or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time.

"And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built, and the only way it’s going to be built is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone — I don’t care what color you are — as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

—El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, speaking at Oxford University on December 3, 1964, eighty days before his death.

From ecologist Ernest Callenbach: Last Words to an America in Decline:

 Much of the American ideology, our shared and usually unspoken assumptions, is hyper-individualistic.  We like to imagine that heroes are solitary, have super powers, and glory in violence, and that if our work lives and business lives seem tamer, underneath they

are still struggles red in blood and claw. We have sought solitude on the prairies, as cowboys on the range, in our dependence on media (rather than real people), and even in our cars, armored cabins of solitude. We have an uneasy and doubting attitude about government, as if we all reserve the right to be outlaws. But of course human society, like ecological webs, is a complex dance of mutual support and restraint, and if we are lucky it operates by laws openly arrived at and approved by the populace.

If the teetering structure of corporate domination, with its monetary control of Congress and our other institutions, should collapse of its own greed, and the government be unable to rescue it, we will have to reorganize a government that suits the people. We will have to know how to organize groups, how to compromise with other groups, how to argue in public for our positions. It turns out that "brainstorming," a totally noncritical process in which people just throw out ideas wildly, doesn't produce workable ideas. In particular, it doesn't work as well as groups in which ideas are proposed, critiqued, improved, debated. But like any group process, this must be protected from domination by powerful people and also over-talkative people. When the group recognizes its group power, it can limit these distortions. Thinking together is enormously creative; it has huge survival value.