Wednesday, May 6, 2009

African Liberation Day 2009

African Liberation Day (ALD) is about peace and justice loving people in the world coming together to commemorate the struggles for a righteous world. This means that although ALD is specifically the struggle of African people (Black people) to regain our self determination on a worldwide level. ALD acknowledges that African people are humanist and support all just people's struggles. That means the struggles of the peoples of Europe, and even poor white people in the U.S., and of course the struggles of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the struggles of the Asian peoples, Arabs, and all other segments of the human family.

ALD is about acknowledging that woman are full human beings, not physical commodities, who should be supported in their efforts to regain their dignity and self respect. ALD is about acknowledging people are more important than profits. That socialist development really means, free education, free healthcare, free childcare, a guaranteed job, housing expenses being no more than 10% of your income by law, and making sexism, racism, and other ills illegal. ALD is about recognizing that any person with common sense would at least want to examine the benefits of having those things in society.

ALD is about acknowledging the primacy of Africa and that Africa must be redeemed after centuries of exploitation. The core of the problem of African self sufficiency is in the redemption of Africa, not the U.S.

Finally, ALD is about acknowledging that the despite relative difficulties on some levels in recent months, life for citizens in the U.S. and the other industrialized countries is built and maintained on the exploitation of the majority of the world's populations and this has got to stop! The only way to stop it is through organized revolution because the forces who set up this system will never relinquish power without the demand of the revolutionary force to take it from them.

ALD 09 is being organized by the All African People's Revolutionary Party throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the U.S. Other organizations like the African People's Socialist Party are also organizing ALD commemorations. Unlike some of the pronouncements from people allegedly speaking for the APSP, the A-APRP will never set trip and denounce any organization's efforts to organize the people for liberation. We encourage people to support the APSP and all formations making an effort for positive social change. We encourage people to join the A-APRP, APSP, and all organizations working for change and we charge that anyone who doesn't understand the necessity of functional unity today is either the enemy or stupid because they are doing the work of the enemy for free.

On the West Coast of the U.S. the A-APRP invites you to attend ALD in Oakland, California on Saturday, May 30th from noon to 6pm at Bobby Hutton Park (Defermery Park) in West Oakland. For more info, call 510-669-9894

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Swine Flu? What Concerns Should We Really Have?

In April 2009, we find ourselves in the midst of an international panic over the apparent spread of the swine flu. Mexico has approximately 160 deaths in recent weeks that have been attributed to this alleged swine flu outbreak. The disease has surfaced in several countries, including the U.S., Canada, and other technologically developed countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that the disease has pandemic potential. Since the primary objective of the capitalist media is to sell the story, not to educate, there is very little useful information going out to people about swine flu beyond encouraging people to wash their hands several times a day.

We know that swine flu is an influenza caused by a virus that usually infects pigs. The existence of this disease in human beings was virtually unheard of before 2009. In fact, according to the WHO, transmission from pigs to humans is so uncommon that before the current outbreak, there had only been about 50 recorded transmissions from pigs to humans in the last 60 years. When this transmission takes place, it is called the transmission of the zoonotic swine flu.

We also know that the strain currently grabbing headlines is a much more virulent strain than previously known. It is a virus subtype called the H1NI. Scientists are claiming that this 2009 strain has evidently surfaced as a result of a previously unprecedented combination of human influenza, avian (bird) influenza, and two separate strains of swine flu. The World Organization of Animal Health is reporting that the H1NI strain transmits much easier from pigs to humans than previously known strains of swine flu.

As can be expected, the WHO and all of the national health organizations such as the Center of Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S. have no idea what caused the violent mutation from traditionally known strains of swine flu to the H1NI strain that is apparently threatening pandemic levels now. Again, since ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and all the other CIA networks are in business primarily to sensationalize news to get you to watch so they can sell advertising space for higher premiums, as usual, the critical questions that should be asked right now are not being asked. The critical questions are not just how you can avoid catching swine flu right now. That's obviously the most pressing concern in this emotionally charged and nurtured environment in which information flows in a capitalist society, but the critical questions go far beyond just survival from the latest human menace. Swine flu poses a threat to human beings that it has never posed before. Why in 2009, are we faced with unprecedented mutations of swine flu, HIV, and other diseases? Why does everyone know one or more persons who have contacted cancer when 40 years ago that disease was unheard in comparison to current levels. Why does everyone today know someone with Altsheimers disease or dementia when 30 years ago these diseases were virtuely unknown?

We are not prepared today to provide answers to these questions, but we can provide critical food for thought. We believe that you would either have to be a terribly naive person or a proudly ignorant one to think that the recent proliferations of all of these pandemics and problems is just a coincidence. This point isn't to suggest that there is some secret society plotting against the people of the planet. We are not arguing that Skull & Bones, the Tri-Lateral Commission, or even the Council of Foreign Relations are planning to thin out the world's populations (although all of those groups play significant roles in causing stress and oppression for the majority of the world's people). The suggestion here is that the systematic and exploitative nature of the imperialist system permits it to cause human suffering just by the very mechanisms of its existence. Want an example? Corporations produce products as cheaply as possible in order to maximize profits. As a result, deadly chemicals are disposed of as cheaply as possible. Just like some of you may decide to dump motor oil into the sewer instead of paying to take that motor oil to an authorized recycling station, corporations decide to dump toxic chemicals into water ways in areas where they are least likely to get penalized for doing so. This standard practice has created toxic conditions in primarily technologically underdeveloped countries like Mexico, and in poor neighborhoods throughout the U.S. It would be foolish to assume that the influx of these toxic chemicals does not have some devastating impact on the human DNA of the people who inhabit the planet. By the same token, corporations use the same cost cutting measures (to maximize profits) to make food products as cheaply as possible. As a result, chemicals that are not compatible to human chemistry are being pumped full scale into processed foods that are consumed by millions of people daily. These toxic foods make up the nurtitional foundation of millions of children until their toxic substance begins to break down the bodies natural strengths and immunities (which makes us more susceptible to disease). Again, it would be terribly naive for anyone to believe this is not happening on a mass scale.

So, to summarize, we are not prepared to say where swine flu, AIDs, cancer, dementia, or any of these ills originates from. We are prepared to say that people need to stop listening to and expecting the spokespersons for evil to tell us the truth as it relates to our wellbeing. The capitalist news outlets are nothing more than mouthpieces for international imperialism. We need to talk to each other, recognize trends, and spread information to organize ourselves to solve these problems. We need to learn to not react emotionally to problems, or to attempt to ignore any problem we can't handle on an emotional level, but to learn to critically study problems and come to logical solutions that will benefit humanity.