Thursday, March 31, 2011

A Homegoing Celebration for Beatrice L. Robinson

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson Project
Pittsburgh, PA
March 31, 2011

                        December 10, 1915- March 31, 2005

Tuesday April 5, 2005 * 11:00 AM
Christian Tabernacle Kodesh Church of Immanuel
2601 Centre Avenue* Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219

   " This is the day which the lord hath made;
         we will rejoice and be glad in it"
                                              Psalms 118: 24

                                     Officiating
               Dr. Kenneth O. Barbour, Supervising Elder
                       Kodesh Church of Immanuel

                      ORDER OF SERVICE
                 
ORGAN MEDITATIONS

PROCESSIONAL

PRAYER OF INVOCATION

SCRIPTURE READINGS..........................................Psalm 90:1-12
                                                                                   I Corinthians 15:51-57
SPECIAL PRAYER...................................................Rev. Fred Richardson

POEM.......................................................................Adrena Richardson

MUSICAL SELECTION.........................................." Amazing Grace"
                                                                                    Ruth Still
SPECIAL REMARKS...............................................Tony Watts

SPECIAL REMARKS...............................................David Bradshaw

MUSICAL SELECTION..........................................." Will the Circle Be
                                                                                     Unbroken"
                                                                                   Women's Missionary
                                                                                    Circle
ACKNOWLEDGMENT........................................... Marva White
OF CONDOLENCES

READING OF THE OBITUARY..............................Beatrice Shelton

MUSICAL SELECTION.........................................."His Eye is on the Sparrow"

EULOGY.................................................................Dr. Kenneth O. Barbour

RECESSIONAL....................................................." When We All Get to Heaven" Congregation

                                  INTERMENT
                          Allegheny Cemetery

                                     OBITUARY

Beatrice L. Robinson was born on December 10, 1915 in Charlotte NC. She was one of four children born to Sherman and Pearl Brooks. Beatrice attended McKelvey Elementary School and Herron Hill Junior High.
She graduated from Schenley High School. After high school, Beatrice attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now called Carnegie Mellon, and Duff's Iron City Business College. In 1956 she received her LPN from Catherine McCauley School of Practical Nursing.
    Beatrice, a longtime Hill District resident, was the first African American female to be appointed as treasurer to  the executive board of the Pittsburgh Unit of the American Newspaper Guild. By this appointment, Beatrice became the first African American female in the country to serve as treasurer of a local union. She was also chairman of the Courier Unit of the Newspaper Guild and served on the executive board of the Pittsburgh Unit of the Newspaper Guild for fifteen years. During that time, Beatrice was employed by the Pittsburgh Courier and eventually became the paper's office manager. She worked for the paper from 1943 until her retirement in 1980.
  Beatrice was chairperson of the Annual Courier Page One Ball Committee and assisted the Pittsburgh Branch of the NAACP on its "EE" ( emergency education) funds. Furthermore, Beatrice was President of the Francis Street Friendly Circle Club in the Hill District, a club dedicated to helping neighbors live better. Beatrice's work with the Francis Street Friendly Circle Club included donating televisions and other equipment to the Centre Avenue YMCA, contributing to the United Negro College Fund, giving camperships and memberships to boys in the community and helping needy families by not only giving clothes, but also money.
Beatrice married James S. Robinson, Sr. on September 8, 1952. They joined Christian Tabernacle Church in January, 1970. Beatrice was a member of the Mission Circle, Foreign Mission Board, the Dean of Harty Bible School, Teacher of the Year in 2002, where she inspired hundreds of students in her Genesis class, trustee of the church, member of the Tabernacle Choir, assembly helper, director of Vacation Bible School, coordinator of the Annual Friends and Family Day and President of the Harty Bible School Class of 1969.
Beatrice served two terms as President of the Harty Bible School Alumni Association.
 Beatrice is survived by her two sons, Thomas J. Saunders of Woodbridge, VA and Ronald B. Saunders of Pittsburgh, daughters-in-law Mina, Judith and Maxine Saunders of Bermuda, sisters-in-law Viola Fant of Pittsburgh, Julia Johnson of Philadelphia, Arnold of Pittsburgh and William of Willingboro, NJ.
She was preceded in death by her husband, James and by her sisters Ester Austin, Ruth Brooks, and Montrose Bradshaw. She leaves a legacy of six grandchildren and three great grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews, and cousins.

                ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The family wishes to express their sincere appreciation for the kind expressions of sympathy and prayers during their hours of bereavement.
                      
              PALLBEARERS

Darryl Austin.......................................................Joseph Pollard
David Bradshaw..................................................Jonathan C. Saunders
Ralph Bradshaw..................................................Thomas J. Saunders III

Give me Savior a purpose deep
In Joy or sorrow Thy Thrust to keep
And so through, care and strife
Glorify Thee in my daily life
Only one life,T'will soon be past
Only what's done for Christ will last.
Only one life, T'will soon be past
Only what's done for Christ will last.

Arrangements by the Odell Robinson Funeral Home
                           

 

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Congratulations Betty Dukes For Standing Up Against Wal-Mart

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
March 30, 2011
Bowie, Maryland
BBNS

At a time when most Negroes are afraid of their own shadow Betty Dukes and other similarly situated women at Wal-Mart have filed a large law suit alleging discrimination in the systems of pay, and promotions against the mega employer.
 I would like to commend Mrs. Dukes for having the intelligence, courage, heart, and determination to stand up for all the women at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.
Mrs. Dukes lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vs Dukes-10-277 was filed in 2001 and thousands of women have already benefited from the filing of the lawsuit by receiving equitable promotions and appropriate pay increases.

Although in some cases the defendant Wal-Mart may be able to show that they presently are promoting women and paying women in a fair manner that does not take them off hook for the allegations and actions alleged prior to the filing of the suit in 2001 nor any present affects of past discrimination.
The Supreme Court has to first decide whether or not Betty Dukes has standing to file a class action lawsuit for 1.5 million women who are similarly situated as the Plaintiff Mrs Dukes. The U. S. Supreme Court may remand the merits of the case to the lower court or they may elect to hear all the allegations after ruling on the numerosity of the class, and other legal issues that are germane to certifying the class.
The women at Wal-Mart should not expect a favorable ruling on the class because the Court is presently stacked with judicial activist neo-cons who are solely on the court to protect the interest of big business and the extreme right wing. Remember the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United?


Good Luck!

Friday, March 25, 2011

"Today is 'Dorothy Irene Height Day' in Virginia"

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Big Stone Gap, Virginia
 March 25, 2011
Breaking News
BBNS


Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonell has declared today to be "Dorothy Irene Height Day" in the commonwealth, in honor of the civil rights pioneer, who died last April at age 98.
McDonnell's proclamation makes reference to Height's participation in U.Va's Explorations in Black Leadership series.
You can watch Julian Bond's 95-minute interview with Height here on U.Va's You Tube channel.
Mrs Dorothy Height was a true American heroine who over came enormous odds to become a great national leader.
Further Mrs Height was an outstanding role model for women in the United States and abroad.
It is very fitting that the Commonwealth of Virginia honor Mrs Height with a special day of recognition.
Mrs Height was a proud member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

One Million Black People Have Been Displaced In The Ivory Coast: Where Is The Coalition Of The Willing?

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Abidjan, Cote d I'voire
March 25, 2011
Breaking News

 President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers  one million Black people have been presently displaced in the Ivory Coast do to intense fighting where is your Coalition of the willing? Isn't a Black life as important as a White Arab life?
Why is there no concern for the plight of the suffering of these indigenous Blacks by the Obama administration?
What is the UN doing other than paying lip service to remedy the problems in the Ivory Coast?
 Watch how the Obamatrons and Bell Curve Negroes attempt to rationalize Obama's inaction's in the instant case of  the one million Blacks who have been misplaced.
 Another two million human beings in the Ivory Coast are on the brink of being eliminated by hostile forces while Obama is sitting back in the Oval Office looking weak and confused as all these crisis' erupt on the world stage.
Let's face it folks during the whole history of the United States of America, Africa and Black people have never been a priority except to uproot the people and enslaved them coupled with stealing, raping the continent of it's precious minerals and other valuable resources. "That's the American Way" and the same basic truism is applicable to the French, Brits, Germans, Danes, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgians, Italians, and the nefarious Arabs who have also committed grave inhumane crimes against people on the continent of Africa.
The Obama administration and the corporate media could care less about Africa unless it concerns oil, or minerals, otherwise let the "Blackies" kill each other.

Is this the change you voted for?

Or is this ! Just the same old same old?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Are The People Assisting Qaddafi Mercenaries,Or African Freedom Fighters?

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Rabat Morocco
March 24, 2011
Breaking News


 The sponsored media in the United States, UK, and France, in concert with Al Jazeera has deliberately engaged in a well orchestrated campaign of misinformation and deception about what is really happening in Libya to a gullible and naive American public.
 More importantly an estimated 16,000 Black freedom fighters ( not mercenaries as BBC, PBS, NPR, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, CBS, ABC, NEW YORK TIMES, WASH. POST, L. A. Times, NEWSWEEK, TIME, and Al Jazeera would have us believe) have poured into Libya from the Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Zimbabwe,  Sierra Leone, Liberia, Niger, Chad,  Mauritania, Southern Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso to fight for Muammar Al Qaddafi's revolution.
According to an official in northern Mali hundreds of young Tuaregs from Mali and Niger are also among the African freedom fighters, "We're very worried" said Assalat Ag Abdou Salam, President of the Regional Assembly of Kidal,"These young people are moving in droves to Libya. It's very dangerous for us because whether Qaddafi wins or falls the impact will be felt in our region."
 The vast majority of Americans don't even know what the term Pan- African unity is.  What we are presently witnessing on the ground in Libya is Pan-African unity and this is the one of the reasons why the West is afraid  along with their duplicitous racist Arab collaborators in the Arab League and the rebel inspired Al-Qaeda groups inside Libya.
 The question is why would Black Africans risk their lives and fight for Qaddafi? Because many of these freedom fighters and liberation movements have received education, military training, and assistance from Libya when they were battling imperialist backed despotic regimes in their own countries, and now they are determined to defend the man and country who stood by them in their darkest hour.
The Pan-African Congress of Azania ( South Africa ) traveled to Libya to meet with Qaddafi face to face and express their support and solidarity. They issued a statement expressing "their support to Qaddafi, who had been crucial to the PAC during the days of apartheid in South Africa."
Our mission at the BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE is to tell the truth and nothing but the truth regardless of where that truth may lead us.
 The great African freedom fighter Kwame Ture ( Stokley Carmichael), who had close ties with the Libyan revolution, warned us that "the imperialists don't lie sometimes, they lie all the time."

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Four Million Blacks Have Been Killed in the Congo in the Last Ten Years: Why hasn't France, the U.S. or the UK Intervened in That Genocide?

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Burnt Corn, Alabama
March 22, 2011
Special Report

Four million Blacks have been slaughtered in the Congo in the last ten years in a brutal civil war type of conflict. Why hasn't there been any intervention from the coalition of the willing France, the United States of America or the United Kingdom?
France, the U.S. and the UK are three of the most hypocritical nations on the planet earth and demonstrate their hypocrisy by silently supporting their policy of non-engagement if their economic interests are not being threatened by a group of Blacks slaughtering one another in the Congo. The U.S., the UK and France could care less about Blacks killing each other in the Congo and therefore these countries lack a concerted action to assist in remedying the conflict in the Congo river basin.
The present crisis in the African nation of Gabon is far more horrific than what is happening in Libya, Yemen or Bahrain but the U.S again has been mute on the plight of the suffering of the people in Gabon.
Why? Because they are 'Black stupid' and the U.S and its partners in crime the French and Brits don't have an economic interest in Gabon.
What has the great UN done to resolve or mediate the crisis in Gabon, and what has the UN done to stop the carnage in the Congo?
President Obama, your silence on Gabon is just another form of oppression.
Did anyone hear U.S. Senator John Kerry speaking out against the atrocities in Gabon or the Congo? What is the reason for his silence?
Remember when Slick Willie (Bill Clinton) was President of the United States?  He was preoccupied with Monica Lewinsky on his lap and watched the genocide in Rwanda unfold.  Not one of the former slave power countries lifted a finger to stop those horrendous crimes in Rwanda.  Is the tan puppet in the White House following the same script as Clinton's hands off Rwanda policy in reference to Gabon and other countries in Africa where the populations face the same atrocities as in the Congo?

Is the Change You Voted For? 

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Starting with Libya, France wants to organize North African states into a Mediterranean bloc

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Rabat, Morocco
March 20, 2011

Global Breaking News

by Dr. Molefi Asante and Dr. Ama Mazama

(GB-N.com) - At this very moment, several Western powers and their Arabs lackeys have started an attack on one of the most progressive minded governments in Africa. We must be clear that the attack on Libya is an attack on Africa. One of the reasons that the French, the United States, and Britain could not get an agreement from the African Union to bomb Libya is because the political intelligence of African leaders has grown tremendously since the crises in Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia and Egypt.

Afrocentricity International has one permanent objective: the establishment of the United States of Africa. Muammar al-Qathafi, leader of Libya, is a strong advocate of this goal. He has minced no words about his support for, and belief in, this mission. Indeed, Muammar al-Qathafi knows that if Africa is divided between Northern states and Southern states or if Africa continues to exist as 54 independent states, the European nations and the North American nations of Canada and the United States will eat each part of Africa alive. They will not be able to dominate a continent that is united, firm in its convictions and dedicated to the liberty of its territory.

No African leader is more committed than Muammar al-Qathafi to an Africa for Africans. In this, he reminds us of the clarion voice of Marcus Garvey – the early 20th century African nationalist from Jamaica. With the fall of Tunisia, Libya, and possibly Morocco and Algeria, France will succeed in its major plan to bring those states, and especially oil-producing Libya, into a grand Mediterranean Basin clique. In such a scenario, the northern part of Africa will be declared the southern ridge of the European nation to the north. Muammar al-Qathafi has been one of the leading opponents of this neo-hegemony over African territory.

Afrocentricity International believes that a United States of Africa is necessary to deal with the never-ending problems in Africa. Such a union would be a step towards overcoming diseases, transportation problems, famine and land disputes. In our judgment, one should not be so fast to criticize Muammar al-Qathafi just because Western governments call for such an action. If they say that al-Qathafi is punishing his people, denying free speech, and keeping them uneducated, then this must be proven.

Furthermore, why hasn’t the Western world rolled into Israel or the West Bank to save the Palestinian people who suffer true slaughter and discrimination at the hands of Israel? What is Gaza, if it is not the pit of hell? When shall we hear high-sounding words from the leaders of the Western world in support of those Arabs? Africans must beware of the gifts of Europe. Their interests are not the same interests as the African continent.

Since Kwame Nkrumah, Africa has rarely had a visionary as broad in thinking and as dedicated in commitment as Gaddafi. Perhaps in his desire to strengthen the continent and to make Africa powerful, he went too far with his donations to the governments of Senegal, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe and did not do enough for the Libyan people. However, we have not seen any substantial argument in support of the narrative that Gaddafi is not good for his country.

President Sarkozy of France boasts that some Arab nations support the attack against Libya, but even if that proves to be so, one must not read too much into this without some appreciation of the Arabs’ distress with Gaddafi’s pro-African stance. Transformations are produced by those who are focused on long term goals, not by those who make convenient alliances with the enemies of their people.

Kwame Nkrumah said once: “We face neither East nor West, we face forward.” Muammar al-Qathafi has made Nkrumah’s mantra his own: “Africa must unite or perish.” Why would this language threaten the West? The Libyan leader has encountered and continues to encounter setbacks and hurdles. The work of the Brother Leader, as Muammar al-Qathafi is sometimes called, has been to raise African consciousness to the point where some of the nations on the continent of Africa reject the loyalty they hold for the former slave-holding and colonial powers. Although some African leaders still seem to fear other Africans, resisting some of Muammar al-Qathafi’s proposals that Africa do away with travel restrictions, create a common currency, and ease trade tariffs and barriers.

Afrocentricity International believes that it is important for us to support Libya and seek a genuine settlement between the people of the country and their government. With the proper safeguards and cooperation of the African world, the Libyan people can sort out their own internal squabbles. The great danger in the attacks on Libya is that the United States is testing the effectiveness of AFRICOM - the African Command - and this attack, if successful, will open the door for direct military intervention, by the United States and Europe, in Africa.

We already know that the United States, and the former slave-holding and colonial powers, France and England, are re-inventing cold war policies to enlarge and protect their economic interests on the African continent. The attack on Libya is also a challenge to Brazil, Venezuela, China, Iran, and Russia for influence on the continent.

However, beyond the economic argument is the moral argument for African people. Why should a small group of dissidents be able to challenge their state, and invite international hegemonic forces to invade their land? Who is to blame for this political folly? We do not see the collapse of the Libyan government and we support the masses of Libyan people from the tyranny of a minority. When Africa needed Muammar al-Qathafi

Copyright 2011 http://www.globalbreakingnews.com/

*The preceding article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Black Buzz News Service.

The authors of the preceding article failed to mention why Qaddafi's Libya invaded the Black nation of Chad.
Further the authors comparing Qaddafi to the true Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah is pure lunacy. Dr. Asante and Dr. Mazama what African nation did Nkrumah invade? Did Nkrumah invade an African nation? Dr. Asante and Dr. Mazama when and where did Nkrumah attempt to undermine a Black African nation? Please tell us Dr. Asante and Dr. Mazama when did Nkrumah give an appearance of killing his own people? President Nkrumah had a strong unwavering love for all Black people on the Continent of Africa and throughout the African Diaspora.  President Nkrumah was married to an Egyptian and he understood that the same Neo-Colonial system that was oppressing Black Africans was also running roughshod over the Arab populations in Northern Africa. 
France killed millions of Arabs in a vain attempt to suppress the Algerian revolution. And I find it totally reprehensible and repugnant that the three main colonial powers, the Brits, French and the U.S. are leading the charge to allegedly save Libyans from Qaddafi. 
The bottom line is the cowardly French, the deceitful Brits and the sinister U.S. want to topple Qaddafi to establish a puppet regime that is friendly to their interests in order for their multi-national robber baron oil companies to prosper and make enormous profits. It's always been 'about the oil, stupid' and the three main colonial powers could care less about a group of rag-tag Libyans and populace attempting to overthrow the good Colonel.
The authors of this article are correct in their detailed analysis of the rogue state of Israel.
 Also note it is believed by some scholars that British Intelligence has been working with Al-Qaeda and there fellow travelers in Libya to topple Qaddafi.
 Obama's war in Libya could result in a government similar to the Al-Qaeda government in Somalia.
Obama looks totally weak and confused in his handling of the conflict in Libya.













WAHOO BUZZ: The great Debbie Ryan Steps Down as UVA Women's Basketball Coach After 34 Seasons

BLACK BUZZ SPORTS NEWS SERVICE
Charlotteville, Virginia
March 20, 2011
BBSNS

WAHOO BUZZ

Debbie Ryan will go down in history as one of the greatest basketball coaches in the college game and is an outstanding role model for young women.
 Coach Ryan is a number one class act and every young woman that has played for her has benefited immensely from her association with this excellent teacher and great individual.
It would be great if the University of Virginia seriously considered hiring UVa alum, the dynamic Dawn Staley. The highly talented Ms. Staley could provide all the necessary energy to rejuvenate the struggling women's basketball program.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Special Tribute To All Black Women Throughout The African Diaspora

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Cleveland, Mississippi
March 11, 2011
Special Report

The poem by Ronald B. Saunders titled A Special Tribute To Black, Colored, Negro and African American women is a great dynamic moving literary work about strong Black women.

            A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
                                                  Women      

All of you Black women are so beautiful, intelligent and bright,
Why some of you be so uptight?

Black women are the heart and soul of our foundation,
Continually assuring us of a great secure nation.

You come in all colors Blue Black, Ebony, Jet Black, Chestnut, Cinnamon, Tan, Coffee, Carmel, Brown, Chocolate, Light Tan, Copper, Red Bone, Beige, Yellow, Dirty Yellow, High Yellow, Olive and even Pale White,
And there you sit with all your might

For you have been in the forefront in our struggles for Freedom, Justice, Liberation and the fight
For all of our civil and human rights

Your strength, courage and pride are an outstanding example
For all the human race,
Even though at times a few of you maintain a perpetual frown on your face.

Your accomplishments, achievements and inventions are many
In this world of plenty

For the Creator has blessed and watched over you since
The beginning of time
Even when you didn't even  have a nickle or a doggone dime
Jump on board for the Lord
You should have no fear
Because he is always near

Indeed we have beautiful sisters like Eve, Zipporah, Queen Nefertiti, Queen Nefertari, Queen Zenobia, Queen of Sheba, Queen N'Zinga, Queen Judith of Ethiopia, Cleopatra VII, Queen Candace Empress of Ethiopia, Queen Hatshepsut, Queen Amina, Queen Kahina, the Virgin Mary, The Black Madonnas,   Ella Baker, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ida Wells Barnett, Georginia Rosa Simpson, Sadie T. Mozell, Eva B. Dykes, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marion Anderson, Leontyne Price, Phyllis Wheatley, Daisy Bates, Autherine Lucy, Angela Davis, Rosa Parks, Kathleen Cleaver, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Natalie Cole, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Katherine Dunham, Betty Shabazz, Bessie Coleman, Zora Neal Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maritza Correia, Alison Terry, Sybil Smth, Enith Brigitha,  Dr. Ethel Turner, Dr. Edna McKenzie, Debra Ham, Sylvia Pankhurst,  Coretta Scott King, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, Lorraine Hansberry, Yvonne Burke, Barbara Christian, Ruby Dee, Oprah Winfrey, Althea Gibson, Hattie McDaniel, Odetta, Miriam Makeba, Mahalia Jackson, Melissa Lacewell Harris Perry, Cythnia McKinney, Gwendolyn Howze,  Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Sonja Sanchez, Debbie Thomas, Winnie Mandela, Judge Constance Baker Motley, Willie White,  Eleanor Holmes Norton, Lucy Terry, Sylvia Terry, AKA's, Deltas, Zetas, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority,  Lani Guinier, Beyonce, Madam Walker, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, Dr. Johnetta Cole, Frances Ellen Watkins, Halle Berry, Ethel Waters, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Sylvie Kinigi, Ruth Perry,  Eugenia Charles, Portia Simpson Miller, Anita Hill, Dorothy Dandridge, Vanessa Williams, Elizabeth Catletts, Rachel Robinson, Sade, Jenny Lumet, RuNett Nia Ebo, Rita Dove, Dorothy Height,  Dr. Mae Jemison, Sarah P. Goode, Sarah Boone, Roger Arliner Young, Bessie Blount Griffin, Marie Brown, Annie Easley, Dr. Patricia Bath, Chavonda J. Jacobs, Miriam E. Benjamin, Ursula Burns, Alex Canady, Jewell Plummer Cobb, Angela Ferguson, Evelyn Boyd Granville, Betty Wright Harris, Shirley Ann Jackson, Majorie Stewart Joyner,  Mary Kenner, Annie Turnbo Malone, Mildred Austin Smith,  Valerie Thomas, Jane Cooke Wright, Jean Bryant,  Little Kim, Tamara Tunie, Elaine Brown, Ericka Huggins, Shirley Williams, Dr Francine G. McNairy, Anette Gordon-Reed,  Charlayne Hunter Gault, Sisters of the Black Panther Party For Self Defense, Sharon Pratt Dixon, Fannie Lou Hamer, Anita Baker,  Soledad O'Brien,  Mary Frances Berry, Margaret Burroughs, First Lady Michele Obama, My grandmother Odessa Pearl, My great grandmother Dicie, My great great grand mother Candice, My grandmother Big Mama, My great grandmother Annie, My Aunt Lorraine, All of my Aunts, All of my Cousins, Shari Belafonte, Lonear Heard, Nicole Hammond, Jill Nelson, Long Tall Sally, My nieces, Sister Souljah, Sweet Juicy Lucy, Sister Sadie and the Dragon Lady, and your mother and mine,
Now listen world couldn't you be a little more kind

The pain, agony and suffering
You have been subjected to
Is like climbing the highest mountain,
For the whole world has come to know you
And men from all nations have drunk at your fountain

Your perpetual love has endured for centuries
Like a swift flowing mighty stream
when we make love I hold your soft thick thighs and explore your deep inner soul
while you maintain a perpetual radiant gleam

You have stood by the side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
And Malcolm X Little
And brothers who aren't so famous
Even those who play the banjo and the doggone fiddle

Your beauty and wisdom are found in the ancient Nubian
And Egyptian Queens,
Cushite Princesses and Maidens
And in millions of other sisters who have that certain type of sheen.

For you are the mother of the entire human race
Regardless of your condition of being enslaved and continually raped
Which is still an International disgrace.

When I see the present women of  Accra, Addis Ababa, Charlotte North Carolina, Bermuda,  Athens,  Bombay, Berlin, Botswana, Sydney, Tokoyo, Seoul, Boston, Haifa, Caracas, Helsinki, Libreville, London, Moscow, Dar-Es Salaam, Prague, Paris, Port of Spain, Rabat, Boley Oklahoma, Mound Bayou Mississippi, Cleveland Mississippi, Waycross Georgia, Harlem New York, Wampum PA, Vancouver, Columbia Maryland, Bonn, New Orleans, Copenhagen, Aruba, Martinque, Fryeburg Maine, Wilberforce Ohio, Quebec, Toronto, Freetown, Khartoum, Lagos, Rio and Rome,
I see some of you in them
For you can call the whole world your home
And people from every nation could be your next of kin

Hold your head high my sister and stand tall
Walk beside me and work tirelessly with me before we all fall

By Ronald B. Saunders
1993

* In The Above Picture is my mother on the left Mrs Beatrice L.Saunders Robinson and to the right is her sister-in-law Mrs Clifton Lorraine Brown, who is my aunt. My aunt Lorraine is the baby sister of my father James S. Robinson Jr.
* Mrs Clifton Brown is the sister-in-law of the famous Jazz great Ray Brown, and my mother Mrs Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson was the first African American female in the USA to serve as Treasurer to a national union which was the American Newspaper Guild or Newspaper Guild of America.

* Black African women throughout the Diaspora are one of God's most precious gifts to the America's.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Dove Elected To American Academy of Arts and Letters

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Charlottesville, Virginia
March 14, 2011
Breaking News

Former United States Poet Laureate, Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English in the University of Virginia's College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Congratulations Ms. Dove

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Arab League Endorses a No-Fly Zone Over Libya

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Norway, Maine
March 13, 2011
BBNS

The Arab League with all of its brutally corrupt authoritarian dictatorial oligarchies and monarchies has just endorsed the concept of a
no-fly zone over Libya. Not one of the members of the Arab League has the military capability of carrying out a mission of establishing a no-fly zone over Libya, which therefore leaves it up to the U.S. and NATO to carry out that function and task.
The Arab Leagues is quick to go to the UN when their own interest is being threaten, and when they don't  have to use their own populations to promote their interests.  It will be primarily Americans risking their lives to save these feudally backward Arab States.
The Arab League wants the no-fly zone over Libya because they feel their own corrupt regimes could be at risk if their respective populations take the "Bull By The Horns" and rise up against their niggardly cowardly rule.

Where was the Arab League when millions of Black indigenous  people in Darfur were being systematically slaughtered and exterminated by the Arab Janjaweed and who were also made into refugees in their own land?
Why did the Arab League promote the government in Khartoum in its wicked  divisive deadly campaign of genocide coupled with civil war against the Christian and other populations in Southern Sudan for the last 38 years?
The government in Khartoum is presently promoting and arming breakaway rebel groups in Southern Sudan because they don't want to see the Black indigenous people in the oil rich Southern Sudan controlling all of that oil. This same government in Khartoum used to exact the same tactics in the Darfur region of Sudan by having Black Arab tribesmen known as the Janjaweed carry out horrible atrocities against the people in Western Darfur.
Where was the Arab League when Muammar Qaddafi invaded Chad?  And what  did they do about Libya's blind naked aggression against Chad?
Why hasn't the Arab League demanded that Colonel Qaddafi pay reparations to the people of Chad?  Why is the League so silent on this issue?
Also note that Qaddafi used the Janjaweed tribesmen in his invasion of Chad against the Black native population of Chad. Some scholars say the camel/cattle herding Janjaweed are the descendants and are mixed with the type A and B people of North East Africa.
What has the Arab League done about the persistent issue of slavery in Darfur, Mali, Mauritania, Sudan and in other parts of Africa where there is the foreign presence of the Arab invaders?  And why has the Arab League been so silent on the harsh treatment of their fellow brethren in Palestine by the guilt ridden supremacist Israelis?
Why isn't the Arab League consistently engaged in promoting a two state solution on Palestine in the World Body of Nations?  Why isn't the Arab League the main player in promoting a two state solution rather than the U.S. and the gullible EU?
The silence of the Arab League on all of the previous named issues is just another form of oppression and is quite telling.
The problems of Libya should be solved by Libyans. The puppet UN is only a tool of the U.S., China, Israel and Russia. The UN serves at the behest of the United States of America. What nation pays the largest percentage of the UN's budget? Where is the location of UN's Headquaters? 
I rest my case.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America

Black Buzz News Service
College Park, MD
March 12, 2011

By: Solomon Comissiong

The United States continues to produce one of the most underachieving and disproportionately unequal public school systems within the realm of industrialized countries. Despite a wealth of monetary resources the American public school system has grown quite comfortable when it comes to the vast under funding of myriad of its public schools. The US public school system is separated by chasms of inequality based on everything from socioeconomic class lines to race. The children who come from the most opulent (and mostly white) communities have the most well funded and resourced schools in the land of social injustice. What more would we expect from a country that penalizes school-children whose parents are not property owners. In the land of a bloodthirsty and unbridled capitalist economic system even the futures of kids are auctioned off to the highest bidder. And with the recent attacks on public education by the Obama administration, via Race to the Top, there is no end in sight. Privatizing public education by way of a well funded charter school scam has been working like a charm for the cretins that masterminded this lucrative scheme. Dedicated school teachers and their unions are currently facing a relentless attack that is being financially backed by Wall Street, the White House, as well as conservative and liberal minions, alike. These monsters in wolves clothing could not give a damn about quality and equal education for all; they care about their bloated bank accounts. Despite the litany of class and race based issues that reside within America’s failing public school system, there is at least one major problem that exists within, both, poor and well to do school systems. No matter how wealthy or impoverished the community that any given school may reside within, the vast majority of them are devoid of curricula laden with critical thinking instruction.

Most Americans are systematically steered away from even the most rudimentary critical thinking skill acquisition, from cradle to grave. The US ruling class has long been petrified of a truly engaged mass of people who bring with them a strong critical thinking prowess. They will never admit their reasoning as to why they dumb down the American citizenry, for it is fear of ultimately losing their power and control. Democracy is but a mere illusion that has been sold to the American public in exchange for their minds. The scant few that control every major institution within American society have more than bought into Walter Lippmann’s “Bewildered Herd” theory—they have fully incorporated it within their mass control playbook. He, like the rulers of today, believed that the general public is incapable of making critical decisions regarding the very society they live in, thus they must methodically be fed a steady diet of limited political information. In essence the general public must be controlled by propaganda aimed at routinely mollifying and shaping them in to obedient pawns for the elitist puppeteers that ultimately control them. These elites have set up an evil system based not on the human-being itself, nor the community—it is based on capital. It is a system that is pays dividends to the highest bidders regardless whether it is healthcare or education. Ironically enough many of those most exploited by this system, which is non other than capitalism, are the ones who most support it. How can this be; one might ask? It can be, and is, because much of the general public has been mass indoctrinated to the point that they know not even where they began their one-sided love affair for capitalism and Americanism, in general. Their indoctrination and stunting of the growth of their critical thinking receptors can be traced back to their earliest days in America’s public schools. Most of America’s public schools have become assembly lines whose primary task is to produce the next generation of workers, purposely devoid of critical thought. The nascent minds of America’s youth are treated like widgets intended to be placed within the mammoth gears of an unforgivable system of haves and have-nots. This is a necessary process because if more people were trained to critically think and examine the society they live in; they would work collectively to change it into something much more equitable.

America’s schools have become the warehouses for the sustaining of a class based society with all the trappings of institutional racism, sexism, and poverty. Within the schools that operate inside of opulent communities students are taught that if you work hard enough you can pull yourself up by the proverbial “bootstraps”. They are not taught to think of the origins of their communities’ wealth. They are not taught about the injustice of America’s separate and unequal school systems. They surely are not taught about the cons of capitalism, only of the mythological pros. You see, education even within many “well to do” high schools are riddled with a kind of social engineering that trains kids from rich families to see themselves as different or better than kids from economically impoverished communities. Instead of teaching them to see the flaws of capitalism and how it prevents the masses from enjoying the same opportunities that their parents money has bought them; it does the complete opposite, thus ensuring the endurance of the nefarious status quo. The limited critical thinking exercises they may get are as methodic as US electoral politics. This is where the attacks on wealth distribution begin—by way of the omission of any real dialogue regarding the real roots of legacy poverty in America. This is where students from privileged backgrounds could gain some serious critical insight regarding the purposeful lack of wealth distribution in America. However, as the author stated earlier, critical thought leads to a more progressive society—that kind of society is not welcomed by the ruling class. They are the true minority.

Those routinely labeled as “minorities” in America have the least funded schools. These schools reside mostly within inner city and rural communities which have been systematically neglected by the government. They have been isolated and marked for failure; there is nothing accidental about this. Students of color are regularly fed a multilayered poisonous cake of oppression and institutional racism. And as if that were not enough, they are also robbed of any critical thought regimen within the regressive pre-packaged curriculum that is force fed to them. This curriculum aims at not only forcing them to assimilate within an imbalanced Eurocentric paradigm; it also duplicitously trains them to serve as the future employees of white corporate thugs. This is all geared towards ensuring that, regardless of how many people of color are in the US, they will always remain within a deceptive and destructive web of exploitation. The disease of capitalism continues to metastasize within the already anemic body of the American Public School System. Children within the poorest school systems have become commodities for Wall Street ventriloquists and the puppet-like politicians they control with unlimited satchels dirty money. Repugnant companies like Wal-Mart continue to prey upon students, as they did at Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit, trying to funnel them in to the bowels of Wal-Mart stores as employees of a company that has a tainted history of racism, sexism and rugged exploitation. Black and brown students are being experimented on as if they were bacteria stuck on the bottom of a Petri dish, thus the charter school scam continues to gain momentum. The current charter school frenzy is a nefarious scheme designed to destroy inner city public schools, dismantle teachers’ unions, and make corporations even more filthy rich. This all happens as the US government continually de-funds a vastly under-funded and under-resourced public school system.

I have had the opportunity to visit and work with students, teachers and administrators from a wide array of public schools, many within some of America’s most impoverished communities. Many of these educators continue to work tirelessly despite the ongoing attacks on their professions, their unions, as well as facing draconian budget cuts to their schools. Everywhere from Rhode Island to California, thousands of dedicated teachers are getting their pink slips in the most callous manner. The US government, from top to bottom, continues to prove that it could give a damn about its failing school system, or the children within them. I have seen students struggling to learn despite being situated inside vastly dilapidated schools. They exhibit a strength and resilience that continues to inspire me. Forty students to a classroom with only 24 books is something I have witnessed on numerous occasions. This is not right in any way, shape or form. These children reside within a country whose government continues to find reprehensible reason after reprehensible reason to excessively over-fund an already bloated military, all the while neglecting the needs of a long list of under-funded schools. These schools are the sweatshops of the US government corporation. These students can be likened to exploited workers within the factories owned and operated by American corporations, worldwide. The workers receive no benefits and receive meager pay while working 10, 11, and 12 hours a day in ungodly conditions. In some sick and twisted way, they are supposed to appreciate the inhumane conditions assigned to them by corporate gangsters. They are not supposed to even remotely think about the conditions they are languishing in. They are supposed to grin and bear it. Unions are a threat to the exploitive corporate thugs and their power structure. Critical thought is simply a nuisance. When put within this context, it should be fairly easy to see the warranted comparison between most schools within impoverished communities and that of sweatshops. The teachers’ unions are threats to exploitive local, state and federal governments quick to pinch pennies at the expense of auspicious students. They want their teachers to work longer, with fewer resources, and with depleted benefits and an increased lack of financial security. The students are like the sweatshop workers—-relegated to toil in conditions that most politicians on Capitol Hill politicians would never even think of sending their children to. The children are never to critically think about the conditions they have been relegated to within these so-called schools. The conductors of America’s separate and unequal school systems very well know that, if more students critically thought about the conditions they are asked to learn in, they would relentlessly demand better! They also know that if critical thought was infused throughout all of America’s schools of haves and have-nots, America just might become a more just and egalitarian society. Until we, all, decide to demand more for America’s children, regardless of their socioeconomic background, this country will continue to exploit those who cannot afford to buy their way to the top of their voracious capitalist food chain where the rule of the jungle is, ‘eat or be eaten’. It is time we all stand up and fight in solidarity with America’s teachers, their unions, and on behalf of the kids who simply deserve much better. The time is now…

Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.blogtalkradio.com/Your-World-News) and http://www.yourworldnews.blip.tv/.

7 Responses for “The “Critical” Crisis of Public Education in America”



rabshakeh says:

March 10, 2011 at 9:14 am
spot-on analysis of the structural obscenity that is the public school system in amerika. it is crucial that we understand your point that capitalism, predatory and exploitative by nature, is the cancer of public education, and every other social organ in the body politic. and lets not forget that in addition to indoctrination of schoolchildren for wage slavery and corporate servitude, the apparatus preys on our kids for a steady flow of warm bodies [and undernourished minds] into the burgeoning prison system and the rapacious military machine. and as you’ve stated, the role of racism cannot be understated in this diabolical system of greed and exploitation. we are witnessing the systematic unraveling of society.

Reply

weilunion says:

March 10, 2011 at 9:43 am
Time to fight against capitalist schooling and not simply defend public education. Education should be public, don’t get me wrong, but it is the curriculum that must be critically examined. We need to teach our kids critical thinking methods and processes for problem solving and change making.

Until we can offer a curriculum that is based on critical thinking we will continue to compare test scores from one dungeon of despair to another.

The best education students can receive now is to emerge themselves in struggle. To resist is to create, to create is to resist.

Reply

Kiksuya8610 says:

March 10, 2011 at 10:37 am
Last night on NPR there was a report glorifying a new chartered school in DC that “teaches” students how to apply what they learn in school to “real life” by creating scenarios at the school where students act out roles in the hospitality industry. The NPR reporter talked about how students learning French would practice how to properly greet their guests and tour them around the hotel as an excerise for their French class. The report ended basically stating that this was great for DC and for the students since the hospitatlity industry in DC is of great economic importance and this chartered school better prepared the students for life after school. All the students interviewed where African American and it is obvious that such a charter school would only be allowed to practice such indoctrination at a predominately Black school. This would never happen to white kids in the suburbs. The students in this chartered school are not given the opportunity to apply physics to the work of an engineer or practice how calculus is used in the medical field or how macro level analysis of social problems is used by sociocultural anthropolgists. Instead these students are limited and systematically forced to enter the service industry. They are trained to be subservient. Both covertly and overtly told that this is all they can aspire to and nothing more. There is nothing wrong with being in the service sector or with blue collar jobs, however, what is wrong with this situation is that Black children are being forced to one type of job, they are being trained not educated to chose for themselves what they would like to grow up to be. As the author has eloquently stated these chartered schools are perfect examples of separate and unequal schools systems and living proof of todays institualized racism!

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gene dickson says:

March 10, 2011 at 3:12 pm
This article belongs in the editorial column. I can’t even finish it because it is so opinionated. Just the facts pleez!

Reply

rabshakeh says:

March 11, 2011 at 11:11 am
gene, sounds more like you can’t handle the truth of what amerikan capitalism is doing to the education system, and every other facet of life. the above piece is a progressive ANALYSIS, and therefore incorporates language that describes the social realities resulting from the corporate raping of we the people, in addition to the many facts the author noted. the author’s critical approach [application of critical thinking & analysis] inevitably results in the revelations you want to dismiss as “opinions.” its the reality, gene. deal with it.

Reply

Gene is Lame says:

March 12, 2011 at 4:51 am
Gene, you clearly are a product of America’s crappy school system. This article is laden with significant nuggets of information woven between the author’s perspective. America’s schools are this bad and even worse and this is by the design of the ruling class. Gene wake up and sop being and idiot. Your America is an illusion!

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William Crain says:

March 11, 2011 at 1:06 am
Capitalism is the Problem… a couple months back Rupert Murdock told a large audience that there is $500 Billion dollars to be made in Privatized Education… (of course that would mean the demise of Unions) …

However Rupert is a ‘johnny come lately’ as Bill Gates, Wal-mart, and the Sec of Education the militant Arne ‘race to the bottom’ Duncan began officially to move the Neo-liberal economic template on to Education… As evidenced in the Fredrick Douglass Academy – except for that one kid in the back of the class – can’t remember his name… but he jerked their covers.

More Kids, few teachers, Bigger Classes, less pay, More wage slavery, more dead in Wal mart jobs … More Economic Conscription more Global Hegemony… things are pretty bad right now.

The Article was right on as it weighed in on the quagmire before us – the facts will bear out the dumbing down and the unskilled as Educators, as public education takes beating after beating — i’m a product of public education (except for high school) the Education fabric of America is unraveling fast. With out good solid Public Education America the Working Class will be pushed even further down – only the rich will have school – only the rich will have babies – only the rich will be allowed to ???

Good comments Rabshakeh, Weilunion, Kiksuya -

Reply

Harvard Law Reviews WikiLeaks Censorship

Black Buzz News Service
Boston, MA
March 12, 2011
BBNS

Written by Hurricane Dean Media,
Politics Mar 3, 2011
Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler is about to release a comprehensive study on the U.S. government and media’s role in censoring WikiLeaks. The forthcoming report, to appear in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, is titled “A Free Irresponsible Press: WikiLeaks and the Battle over the Soul of the Networked Fourth Estate.” In the report, Benkler dissects the mechanisms that have censored WikiLeaks.

A working draft of the report has been made available online. The draft exposes how the U.S. government, mainstream media, and the emerging corporatocracy have been working together to infringe on the First Amendment Rights of the “networked fourth estate” sites, like WikiLeaks. Essentially, the government has been tripping over its feet to find ways to stop Wikileaks from expressing speech which Benkler argues is clearly protected by the U.S. Constitution and solidly supported by Supreme Court precedent.

In the 66 page document, Benkler suggests the U.S. government has attempted to falsely frame the WikiLeaks revelations in a way to discredit WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. The false framing begins with what Benkler calls the “hurt America” argument. The report points to a string of statements made by Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Joe Libermann, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. For example, the report quotes Biden’s claim that WikiLeaks is “more like high tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers.” In addition, Clinton’s comment, “Let’s be clear: This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.”

Immediately after top U.S. officials falsely framed WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization engaged in an attack on America, the main stream media picked up on the false framing and ran with it. Benkler shows commentator after commentator, on all the main stream media outlets, began echoing the “WikiLeaks hurts America” theme. On top of the White House’s calls, Senator Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, suggested the possible criminality of WikiLeaks actions, “I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them. WikiLeaks’ illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world. No responsible company – whether American or foreign – should assist WikiLeaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials.”

The problem with all this is that what WikiLeaks has done was nothing different than what The New York Times and The Washington Post has done. And besides that, the U.S. government’s own reviews have found that WikiLeaks has actually done little to nothing to compromise our national security. As Department of Defense Robert Gates has repeatedly said under oath, “Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.” Gates followed up in a separate hearing saying, “The review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure.”

Benkler explains, “The political attack on WikiLeaks as an organization and on Julian Assange as its public face was launched almost immediately upon release of the cables. Their defining feature was to frame the event not as journalism, irresponsible or otherwise, but as a dangerous, anarchic attack on the model of the super-empowered networks of terrorism out to attack the U.S.”

With false statements coming from the State Department, key Senators, and the White House, major credit cards, Pay Pal, and host of other sites like Amazon cut off ties with WikiLeaks. Benkler points out that legally, the U.S. government did not have the right to shut down WikiLeaks. However, by a series of “extra-legal” means, the government was able to temporarily shut down the site and its revenue stream. Essentially, all the major corporate controls of the Internet, have now blocked WikiLeaks, as a result of a relentless government propaganda campaign to censor the organization.

Benkler makes clear, that WikiLeaks has done nothing different than dozens of other mainstream media sources throughout our nation’s history. Benkler illustrates that WikiLeaks has published the very same material The New York s, The Guardian, and Der Spiegle has published.

Yesterday, the U.S. Army charged the alleged “source” of the leaked government documents, Private Bradley Manning, with 22 additional charges including “aiding the enemy.” Constitutional law scholar and best-selling author, Glenn Greenwald has been following the media and government’s attempt to censor WikiLeaks from the beginning. Writing in the online magazine Solon, Greenwald has published numerous articles documenting the attacks on whistle-blowers and journalists involved in exposing government corruption. Greenwald has documented the Obama administration’s escalating assault on protected speech.

In his most recent article, Greenwald explains the new charges and asks the very important question, who is the enemy Manning is charged with aiding? According to Greenwald, under Article 104(b) “a person is guilty if he “gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly” If found guilty of aiding the enemy, the court could sentence Manning to death.

Greenwald goes on to ask who is the alleged enemy? He points out that whether the government labels WikiLeaks or Al Qaeda as the enemy, the prosecution’s theory turns acts of whistle-blowing into a “hanging-offense”. In addition, Greenwald argues that if Manning aided the enemy, than so did The New York Times and The Guardian. To further support his argument, Greenwald quotes a Professor Heller:

“If Manning has aided the enemy, so has any media organization that published the information he allegedly stole. Nothing in Article 104 requires proof that the defendant illegally acquired the information that aided the enemy. As a result, if the mere act of ensuring that harmful information is published on the internet qualifies either as indirectly “giving intelligence to the enemy” (if the military can prove an enemy actually accessed the information) or as indirectly “communicating with the enemy” (because any reasonable person knows that enemies can access information on the internet), there is no relevant factual difference between Manning and a media organization that published the relevant information.”

Greenwald and Heller note that while newspapers and Wikileaks can’t be charged under the UCMJ, “there is still something profoundly disturbing about the prospect of convicting Manning and sentencing him to life imprisonment [GG: or the death penalty] for doing exactly what media organizations did, as well.”

Greenwald concludes by stating, “It’s true that members of the military have legal duties that others do not have — including the duty not to leak classified information — but this incredibly expansive interpretation of what it means to “aid the enemy” dangerously encompasses all sorts of legitimate press and speech activities, especially when combined with the Obama administration’s escalating war on whistle-blowing and the journalists who expose government secrets. This is yet another step in infecting the law with doctrines of Endless War and its accompanying mentality.”

Greenwald, Heller, and Benkler put their fingers on a deeply disturbing development in America. While attacks on whistle-blowers and journalist that expose corruptions is nothing new, the intensity and veracity of the Obama Administration’s propaganda campaign and assault on WikiLeaks, along with the inhuman treatment of Private Manning, should sound off serious warning bells to proponents of the First Amendment. Let us not forget, amongst other things, the WikiLeaks documents have shown a widespread American cover-up of torture in Iraq. Manning first attempted, to no avail, to use the chain of command to expose and bring to an end crimes against humanity. Since commanding officers did little to nothing about the criminality going on around them, under both the UCMJ and international law, Manning had a legal obligation to disobey orders. According to Greenwald, this issue was settled during the Nuremberg trials.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our government’s attempt to crack down on whistle-blowers and protected, free-speech is dangerous. This is a series and complicated issue. Most people would rather simply go on believing our leaders when the make public statements about our national security. However, just because Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton said it is so, doesn’t automatically make it so. Remember, the legendary journalist I.F. Stone once famously said, “All Governments Lie.” Why should the Obama Administration be any different?


1 Response for “Harvard Law Reviews WikiLeaks Censorship”

Paul Panza says:

March 5, 2011 at 6:33 am
In a real democratic society all government documents are the property of the people, not the military, not the president or Paypal. In short there are to be no secrets.



























1 Response for “Harvard Law Reviews WikiLeaks Censorship”

Paul Panza says:

March 5, 2011 at 6:33 amIn a real democratic society all government documents are the property of the people, not the military, not the president or Paypal. In short there are to be no secrets

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Secretary Robert Gates Is Wrong About The No Fly Zone For Libya

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Silver Spring, Maryland
March 8, 2011
BBNS

Secretary Of Defense, Robert Gates is wrong to say that you cannot have a no fly zone in Libya without a land invasion.  A no fly zone could  be set-up the same way it was accomplished in Bosnia. You can suppress a fighting force from the air provided the Libyans have no real air force to fight back with.
The North Vietnamese stopped flying after they lost 70 % of their air force in six months. The Libyans have even less.
The U.S. could establish a no fly zone in Libya but the logistical requirements for no fly zone would severely stretch the West's capacities because of the on-going conflict in Afghanistan. The U.S. and their puppet NATO have enough  combat, support, intelligence and surveillance aircraft to accomplish the mission in Libya but the fuel bill will be enormous.
Is this the change you voted for? Then you go sign up Barack Obama's Libyan war.
The American stance for decades states the good Colonel is a jerk, and the U.S. would like to get him out of the way.
Unlike other oil producing countries such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, President Qaddafi has used oil revenues to develop Libya.
The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa, falling in the category of countries with a GNP per ca pita of between USD 2,200 and 6,000.
Unfortunately President Qaddafi is destroying  a lot of the infrastructure in Libya that he built.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Reading The Writing On The Pyramids

Black Buzz News Service
College Park, Maryland
March 5, 2011

By Obi Egbuna

The entire planet is growing increasingly sick and tired of the Western World’s attempts to forcefully shove its pro-imperialist point of view concerning the recent political developments in Egypt down our throats. Since each and every outlet of the Imperialist media apparatus from C-Span to the Voice Of America,
has the job of deliberately misinterpreting what is at the root of the problem, it is up to Mother Africa’s daughters and sons at home and abroad to expose their lies and deceit.

The first thing is to announce to the world that African people are issuing a stern warning,to our former colonial and slave masters,that continuing to perpetuate the myth Egypt is not a part of Africa will no longer be tolerated. We then will follow this up by making a declaration that we will never again let anyone amongst our ranks,teach about Africa in its antiquity in isolation from the needs and challenges all African nations face presently.This sends the statement we feel that the scholarship of distinguished historians like Yosef Ben- Jochannon, George G.M. James, Ivan Van Sertima, and Asa Hilliard, are best complemented by a thorough analysis of Africa’s current political and economic situation,because anything less than our maximum effort for the cradle of civilization is totally unacceptable.

In order to successfully complete this mission, starting with Egypt makes all the sense in the world-especially from the perspective of Mother Africa’s scattered children because President Mubarak is considered a modern day Pharaoh because of the access he has to the blood money of US Imperialism. Since our appetite for truth and justice grows by the second,we don’t hesitate to call the Zionist state of Israel, the true Nation’s capital of the United States.If this point of view is embraced full circle,we remain baffled from here to eternity that besides their beloved Israel,Egypt,under Mubarak, received more financial support from the US than any country on the planet.This is why it humorous to hear the war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,state the obvious when telling the world the Zionists are watching Egypt rather carefully. He forgot to mention that Zionist Israel is instructing the Obama administration on how to address the situation.The African community inside US borders has several interesting points of reference to Egypt and we benefit from increasing our understanding of each and every one of them.

This becomes necessary if the posturing of the Democrats and Republicans, concerning Egypt’s future, continues.

We remember that Malcolm X was poisoned by the CIA in Egypt in 1964,and this made him realize that while tensions between him and the Nation of Islam certainly existed,they were being instigated by the FBI-CIA who, in conjunction with the NYPD(New York City Police Department), are solely responsible for his death. It was also during this period in Egypt that brother Malcolm wrote the article entitled Zionist Logic which as published in the Egyptian Gazette( the country’s national newspaper at the time). The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee had its budget frozen by the US Government,for openly and defiantly supporting Egypt during the six day war with Israel in 1967, while Dr. King and SCLC were manipulated into supporting the Israelis because of their Judaeo-Christian orientation.

Before the popular uprising in Egypt began,the Obama administration had already began retracing their steps,while in the process of determining how Homeland Security could politically contain the growing Islamic Community in the US.The Muslim Link newspaper based in the Washington DC metropolitan area,contained a story on December 20th 2008 that revealed the FBI sponsored a dinner at the Dal Al Noor Masjid. The President of Dar Al Noor Mohammed Mehboob was quoted as saying, “The FBI are anxious to come and develop a better relationship with the Muslim community they will also be here to recruit”.The guest of honor was a 20 year veteran of the FBI Gamel Abdel-Hafiz,who is not only the first Muslim to join the FBI,but an Egyptian native and graduate of Al-Azhar University.In his remarks, Abdel-Hafiz talked about his credentials as a language expert,and also how the FBI had investigated 150 cases of discrimination against Muslims.This not only exposes the Obama administration which sought to bait Muslims into accepting an unholy alliance,it is being done through the guise of a false and redirected form of patriotism.This means Egyptian and Arab children born in the US,will grow up seeking to emulate Gamel Abdel-Hafiz,and betray the legacy of Egypt’s former President and national hero Gamal Abdel Nasser.

When we access the manner in which the reactionary forces in Egypt have attempted to make Nasser a distant memory in his country’s history,he might as well have lived in the days of King Tut and Nefretiti.This giant of a man not only was part of the brain trust that formed the original Non Aligned Movement,but also helped create the Palestinian Liberation Organization and nationalized the Suez Canal,which for the British and their allies was the straw that broke the camel’s back.If the demonstrations that overthrew Mubarak are anything like the anti-British demonstrations that occurred in 1935 in which Nasser himself was shot,the world wouldn’t have to second guess the authenticity of the people’s resistance.If the new Egyptian Government aggressively calls for agrarian reform for the indigenous Africans in Nubia,along with reorganization of Political Parties,this will be the ultimate fighting tribute to Nasser who carried the torch of freedom to the end.

Despite the fact that Nasser and Nkrumah made their transition to the ancestors in the 70′s, the obsession the US-EU alliance has with writing both of them out of history of modern Africa appears to be stronger and more deliberate than ever before. The Mubarak regime represents a reversal of forward progress made under Nasser’s leadership, the women and youth picking up where Nasser left off will automatically put US Imperialism and Zionist Israel on notice like never before.The people in the streets of Egypt have gained significant momentum,from the fact that their Tunisian sisters and brothers who themselves have taken to the streets,are courageously standing with them shoulder to shoulder.

The other dynamic in connection to Northern African politics that has sent chills up the spines of US Imperialism is Nasser’s call for the abolition of monarchies which represents a militant declaration for an all out class struggle.This aspect of resistance in North Africa could not only topple the ruling elite throughout the region and the final destination could very well be none other than Saudi Arabia.The only hope Mubarak and US Imperialism have left,is that nationalist and Islamic forces,will allow traditional points of disagreement to keep them divided. If that is all they have to hang their hat on,they obviously refuse to accept that the political tide change in Northern Africa has changed significantly.

The ultimate irony concerning the uprising against the Mubarak regime,is the Washington Post’s Parade magazine last year labeled Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe the world’s worst dictator.While Zimbabwe has successfully maintained an inclusive Government for two years,that comprised of three political parties and two Vice Presidents ( one of them being modern Africa's first woman vice- president).

Mubarak only selected a Vice President two weeks prior to him being overthrown. It seems like only yesterday that George W. Bush and his cabinet rejoiced during the high-tech lynching of Saddam Hussein,in the same manner his father celebrated the bombing of Libya 25 years ago. While Sub-Saharan Africa collectively bears witness to the numerous setbacks caused by coups and assassinations, our sisters and brothers from the north vividly recall the overthrows of Ben Bella in Algeria and Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran. This is why popular uprisings in Egypt,Tunisia,and Northern Africa, not only put the US-Israeli alliance on notice,but demonstrate that despite abject poverty and shameless exploitation, oppressed people’s character and resolve is too powerful for the enemies of progress to completely contain.

Obi Egbuna is the US Correspondent To The Herald(Zimbabwe’s National Newspaper) a member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Association and can be contacted at obiegbuna15 [at] yahoo.com.

*The preceding article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Black Buzz News Service.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Hopefully Obama's positive smart Diplomacy will trigger dissident protests and revolts in the oppressive regimes in Cuba, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
College Park, Maryland
March 4, 2011
BBNS

*The above title and below blog post first appeared on June 22, 2009.

The notorious brutally corrupt Castro brothers have been in power in Cuba since 1959, and there is no such thing as a Civil Rights or Protest Movement in the dictatorial regimes in Cuba, Egypt, Libya, Syria, or Tunisia.
The Castro's, Mubarak's, Ghadafi's, and Assad's stay in power by the rule of force, intimidation and oppression of the masses of their respective populations.
It is my hope that the Cuban people will one day rise up and overthrow the present racist government in Cuba.
Hosni Mubarak has been in power in Egypt since 1981 and he stays in power by crushing all his political opponents by brute force and oppression. The Assad's have been in power in Syria since 1970. Syria is ripe for an overthrow of this iron fist regime. Colonel Ghadafi appears to be a repackaged terrorist who rules by absolute power and control.  
The main thing that all of these previous mentioned regimes have in common is they do not permit any semblance of citizen participation in the political process. All of these dictatorial governments will fail in the final analysis. It's just a matter of time.
Apparently Cuba, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Tunisia haven't learned any lessons from the Soviets or the Third Reich.  And all these leaders fear President Obama in his offer of outreach and change in their feudal systems of governing their populaces.

*The editor notes that he was correct in predicting changes in the governments of Egypt and Tunisia in 2009
Has Qaddafi lost control of the pseudo counter-revolutionary revolt in his country which is being led by Arab-Supremacists and fueled by the U.S. (CIA) and other nations of the same ilk?

Further the American Empire is crumbling and hemorrhaging at the seams with Machiavellian decadence in all its governmental systems and with a populace that is incessantly engrossed in maintaining an Epicurean lifestyle which is full of all the pathologies of greed, lust, and obscene immoral behavior. 
Study, review, evaluate the causes of the decline of the great Roman Empire and you will find the American Empire has all the signs, symptoms, elements, seeds, and ingredients (red flags) present that signal its fall.  To all you Americanists, the fall of the great American Empire could be sudden or it could be a gradual transformational evolutionary process, but its destruction may be sooner than you think.
The handwriting is on the wall and it's just a matter of time.
Why does the U.S. ( American Empire) need 761 military bases in 156 foreign countries around the globe?  How much money on a weekly basis is the U.S. spending on its cowardly wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan?
How and who is funding these imperial wars of aggression?
Is Libya next on the U.S. hit list?  Can Obama afford to open up another front in the U.S. wars against despotic Muslim regimes while going into next year's presidential election?
How can the U.S. continually pay for these horrible gross mistakes because of its twisted distorted "Modern Day Manifest Destiny Foreign Policy"?

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Tapes reveal Thurgood Marshall's rocky road to the Supreme Court

Black Buzz News Service
Charlottesville, Virginia
March 2, 2011

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer

February 24, 2011 9:29 a.m. EST

Editor's Note: The Miller Center at the University of Virginia released its tapes of President Lyndon Johnson exclusively to CNN's Bill Mears.


Washington (CNN) -- "I'm going to appoint Thurgood Marshall to the (Supreme) Court."

This monumental, unexpected bombshell from President Lyndon Johnson -- spoken in private in the summer of 1965 -- set in motion a history-making drama, revealed for the first time in newly public audio tapes.

In secret recordings and transcripts made exclusive to CNN, Johnson laid out a politically crafty plan that was years in the making to groom Marshall as the first African-American on the high court. It was part of a broader White House strategy to implement the president's civil rights agenda, something he openly hoped would cement his legacy and strengthen the Democrats' base.

Marshall was unaware of all this when Johnson first called him on July 7, 1965. Marshall, then a federal appeals court judge in New York, had been summoned from lunch. The president, a master persuader, wastes little time making his point:

"I have a rather big problem that I wanted to talk to you about," he says. "I want you to give it some real thought because it's something that I have thought about for weeks, and I think that we can't think of how it affects us personally. We've got to think about the world, and our country."

"Yes, sir," Marshall replies, the usually verbose judge unable to get many more words in the conversation.

Johnson then makes the pitch: "I want you to be my solicitor general."

"Wow," is all Marshall can say, clearly in disbelief.

"I want the top lawyer in the United States representing me before the Supreme Court to be a negro. And be a damn good lawyer that's done it before. So you have those peculiar qualifications." He adds, "I want to do this job that [Abraham] Lincoln started, and I want to do it the right way."

Leaving the security of a lifetime job on the bench for an uncertain political post -- where he could be fired at any time -- at first concerns Marshall, who asks for a day or two to think about the offer. But minutes later, he is sold. "The answer's 'yes.' "

'Do it for the people of the world'

Then the president offers a tantalizing hint of bigger things to come.

"Nobody will ever know I talked to you. If you decide that you can do it, I think you ought to do it for the people of the world. ... And if there's not something better, which I would hope there would be, that you would be more amenable to, there'll be security for you because I'm going to be here for quite awhile," he says confidently.

That "something," as later conversations that Johnson has with top aides reveals, is a Supreme Court appointment. It would come two years later in 1967. The solicitor general spot would be a mere prelude to a bigger stage.

The tapes are being released by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, which is analyzing and transcribing secret White House tapes from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Richard Nixon years.

This latest disclosure comes as Justice Marshall is receiving a fresh burst of attention, thanks to a new play on his life starring award-winning actor Laurence Fishburne. His amazing transformation into the civil rights icon is stunning. HBO will air the play Thursday, videotaped from a performance this past summer at Washington's Kennedy Center.

Fishburne told CNN his is an honest portrayal. "It's all there," he said of Marshall, whom he never met. "I mean, we deal with his flaws and we deal with his strengths. We deal with his history; we deal with his disappointments as well as his victories. So, it's all there. It's all there in the show. Warts and all."

Building on an already strong legacy

Marshall had already cemented his legacy as a pioneering NAACP lawyer who won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the justices, his future colleagues. That included Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark ruling ending segregation in public schools. By the time of his government appointments, Marshall was in his mid-50s and itching for new challenges.

Less than two weeks after his new job offer, Johnson secretly makes clear he wants more for Marshall. On July 20, 1965, the president tells economist and informal adviser John Kenneth Galbraith about a pending Supreme Court vacancy that will ultimately go to Johnson friend Abe Fortas. But Johnson is already laying the groundwork for the next court seat.

"I'm going to appoint Thurgood Marshall to the (Supreme) Court," LBJ says flatly. "Not to succeed him (current Justice Arthur Goldberg), but after he's solicitor (general) for a year. After he's solicitor (general) for a year or two, the first vacancy I have. I haven't told anybody that, and I don't want you to, but I brought him here."

Johnson mentions how Southern Senate Democrats held up Marshall's 1961 appointment to the federal appeals bench for months. The president now believes with Marshall's proven skill as a legal advocate, he would make a good solicitor general, arguing cases on behalf of the federal government before the high court.

"At the end of a year or two," in his new job, Johnson predicts, "no one can say that he's not one of the best-qualified men that has ever [been] appointed. And then I'm going to appoint him" to the high court.

Going to Marshall for advice

With a relationship established, Johnson was not shy about calling on his new solicitor general for some practical political advice. Marshall is asked to suggest names of other black leaders suitable for top administration posts, including agency heads and ambassadorships.

The solicitor general suggests Whitney Young, Franklin Williams and Roy Wilkins.

Marshall, despite being among just a handful of top black officials in the administration, appears slightly uncomfortable seeming to speak for all African-Americans in a purely political context.

"You got any suggestions, things we ought to be doing in this Negro field that we're not? I see that they say they're getting very disillusioned with Johnson," says the president, referring to himself in the third person.

"Well, I'm going to get together with some of them within the two-week period and try to find out what's going on," replies Marshall. "I'm having great difficulty in finding out what they want."

That comment may reflect the internal divisions among many in the civil rights movement over direction and strategy in the wake of passage of the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and the Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech just a few years earlier.

But it is clear from this conversation that LBJ is using Marshall's grooming for the Supreme Court as the model he will use to boost other outstanding African American candidates to senior government positions.

By October 1966, some in the Johnson circle had begun quietly offering trial balloons in the press over whether Marshall might be a suitable justice. One U.S. News & World Report writer suggested he would not.

"Did you see the column today by David Lawrence?" Johnson asks Nicholas Katzenbach, his former attorney general. "He's got a mean -- saying that Thurgood's not the best-qualified man. That's the net of it."

In a later conversation, Johnson's reveals Marshall remains on his mind, and he reaches out to key lawmakers and civil rights leaders for their advice.

"I want to build him up where he's impenetrable when he becomes a Supreme Court justice," says the president. But he adds the future nominee knows nothing of this. "I've never told him I'm going to appoint him, and don't know that I am. But he's damn sure going to be qualified."

Opportunity knocks for Johnson

When Justice Tom Clark announced his retirement, the president was ready to make his move.

On June 13, 1967, just moments before he separately calls Marshall to be his nominee, Johnson tells Attorney General Ramsey Clark -- whose father Marshall was about to replace -- of his plans. He dismisses whispers from some in Washington that Marshall is not ready to sit on the nation's highest court.

"He doesn't fit the mold. He's not a Yale man and that kind of stuff, you know," says Clark helpfully. "Just a big, easy-going, very humane-type person. He doesn't change his behavior to suit other people. Doesn't wear striped pants. I think it's a combination of those two factors" the public will embrace.

The two men discuss how the Senate Judiciary Committee will treat Marshall, who will be ultimately confirmed later that summer.

The day after the historic 69-11 Senate vote, Marshall's wife, Cecilia, known as Cissy to her friends, calls the president personally to thank him.

"Now that I have stopped trembling a little, and now that we're more or less legal, I thought I'd like to call you and thank you again so much for the faith you have shown in Thurgood and so much that you have done for everybody."

Johnson replies in a sweet, soft voice, "Well, I know he'll be very worthy of it, and I know that both of us will be proud of him."

Marshall served on the Supreme Court until 1991. He died in early 1993.