SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) -- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Only A Pawn in Their Game--Bob Dylan (Song at the 1963 March on Washington)
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https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/onlyapawnintheirgame.html
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain
Only a pawn in their game
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain
Only a pawn in their game
Monday, June 22, 2020
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
The Military Must be De-Funded Along with the Police - Dan Kovalik
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The Military Must be De-Funded Along with the Police - CounterPunch.org:
EXCERPT:
Democratic President Bill Clinton opened the door wide for this police militarization in the 1990s with the National Defense Authorization Act which created a program, the 1033 program, through which police departments are given surplus military equipment. As recently explained by Michael Shank in an article in The New York Review of Books, entitled “How Police Became Paramilitaries,” pursuant to this program, “local law enforcement began to adopt the type of military equipment more frequently used in a war zone: everything from armored personnel carriers and tanks, with 360-degree rotating machine gun turrets, to grenade launchers, drones, assault weapons, and more. Today, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment—most used, some new—has been transferred to civilian police departments.”
And, once the police receive this equipment, they must use it.
As Shank explains, the 1033 program “requires that law enforcement agencies make use of such equipment within a year of acquisition, effectively mandating that police put it into practice in the public space.” In other words, the police are actually required to turn the military’s high-tech guns against their own people.
The militarization of the police, moreover, can be seen as a
by-product of the US’s over-reliance on the use of military force and
war to solve all of its problems, to the near exclusion of all other
alternatives. Indeed, the US has given up on trying to lead the world
through economic and technological prowess, or through moral suasion.
Instead, our leaders have decided that brute military force alone will
allow the US to dominate the planet, and our nation’s coffers are being
looted to the tune of over $1 trillion a year to do so. The result is
the starving of our educational system, our social safety net and our
nation’s vital infrastructure. This, of course, then leads to mass
deprivation and despair which then leads to mass unrest. And, just as it
deals with the rest of the world, our rulers have decided to deal with
the unrest at home, not by solving the social ills plaguing this nation,
or by fixing a few bridges or dams, but by beating us down with
military-style violence.
Military force, indeed, has become the only instrument in our
government’s toolbox, as quite starkly illustrated recently by the White
House’s decision to give our valuable medical workers military flyovers
costing $60,000 an hour instead of providing these workers with the
protective equipment they have been desperately demanding. As with all
things, our government has money and resources for instruments of
violence, but none for human needs. This is literally killing us, just
as surely as it is killing hundreds of thousands of people – nearly all
people of color, not coincidentally – in foreign lands. The fight
against police brutality and racism must therefore be linked to the
fight to de-fund our military and to the broader fight to de-militarize
our very society and culture.
EXCERPT:
Democratic President Bill Clinton opened the door wide for this police militarization in the 1990s with the National Defense Authorization Act which created a program, the 1033 program, through which police departments are given surplus military equipment. As recently explained by Michael Shank in an article in The New York Review of Books, entitled “How Police Became Paramilitaries,” pursuant to this program, “local law enforcement began to adopt the type of military equipment more frequently used in a war zone: everything from armored personnel carriers and tanks, with 360-degree rotating machine gun turrets, to grenade launchers, drones, assault weapons, and more. Today, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment—most used, some new—has been transferred to civilian police departments.”
And, once the police receive this equipment, they must use it.
As Shank explains, the 1033 program “requires that law enforcement agencies make use of such equipment within a year of acquisition, effectively mandating that police put it into practice in the public space.” In other words, the police are actually required to turn the military’s high-tech guns against their own people.
The militarization of the police, moreover, can be seen as a
by-product of the US’s over-reliance on the use of military force and
war to solve all of its problems, to the near exclusion of all other
alternatives. Indeed, the US has given up on trying to lead the world
through economic and technological prowess, or through moral suasion.
Instead, our leaders have decided that brute military force alone will
allow the US to dominate the planet, and our nation’s coffers are being
looted to the tune of over $1 trillion a year to do so. The result is
the starving of our educational system, our social safety net and our
nation’s vital infrastructure. This, of course, then leads to mass
deprivation and despair which then leads to mass unrest. And, just as it
deals with the rest of the world, our rulers have decided to deal with
the unrest at home, not by solving the social ills plaguing this nation,
or by fixing a few bridges or dams, but by beating us down with
military-style violence.
Military force, indeed, has become the only instrument in our
government’s toolbox, as quite starkly illustrated recently by the White
House’s decision to give our valuable medical workers military flyovers
costing $60,000 an hour instead of providing these workers with the
protective equipment they have been desperately demanding. As with all
things, our government has money and resources for instruments of
violence, but none for human needs. This is literally killing us, just
as surely as it is killing hundreds of thousands of people – nearly all
people of color, not coincidentally – in foreign lands. The fight
against police brutality and racism must therefore be linked to the
fight to de-fund our military and to the broader fight to de-militarize
our very society and culture.
Monday, June 15, 2020
Angela Davis on Black Lives Matter protests, Trump vs Biden & defunding the police (E891) — RT Going Underground
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Angela Davis on Black Lives Matter protests, Trump vs Biden & defunding the police (E891) — RT Going Underground:
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary Black Panther, communist politician and activist Angela Davis. She cites the strength of the Palestinian struggle and their solidarity with her and U.S. resisters.
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary Black Panther, communist politician and activist Angela Davis. She cites the strength of the Palestinian struggle and their solidarity with her and U.S. resisters.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Friday, June 12, 2020
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