Third Estate Sunday Review

The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, August 07, 2016

YNe Ndgo: We do not need a political revolution

‏@YahNeNdgo

Both my talks @ #GNCinHOU are on my fb page: http://Facebook.com/yahnendgo 

TheboyRacR @TheboyRacR

@YahNeNdgo Hey Sista, is your green party speech online anywhere? TY for doing what u do.

5 retweets13 likes

Saturday at the Green Party national convention in Houston, singer and activist YahNe Ndgo addressed the collected:

Are ya'll ready for the political revolution?

I've got something that I'm going to say and you'll not going to like it.

F**k the political revolution.

Revolution -- I got the -- I got the definition pulled up here on my phone.

"A revolution is a forcible overthrow of government or social order in favor of a new system."

I was sitting -- I was sitting at home -- or in my room thinking about this idea of a political revolution. And what I realized is that that is not a realistic idea.

It doesn't exist.

A political revolution really is kind of saying we're going to get up inside of the politics and the system and we're going to transform it. That's not a revolution. That's reformation. Or reforming -- whatever the correct word is.

That's not a revolution.

That's not overthrowing anything.

That's not -- That's what we've been doing for generations.

The idea of a political revolution is what brought us mass incarceration. A political revolution has increased the number of people who have been deported from our country. A political revolution has cost the lives of millions of people across this globe in -- just within the last several years.

We do not need a political revolution.

What we need is an actual revolution.

What we need to do -- as I was talking about this with various of my comrades -- many of you I talked to in this room -- and the question comes up how can you do that, right? When the systems in place are so powerful? And they are. And they've got all kinds of resources -- including now drones that allow them to be able to drop bombs on us like we're video game characters anytime they want to. They don't even have to feel the reality of what they're doing to people anymore, right? I mean, that's what we're dealing with right now.

How do we do it?

And my answer to that is we do it from inside of here [gestures to her heart].

We do it amongst ourselves.

So we have to start -- and this goes back to a little bit about what we were talking about last Thursday -- we got to go inside and understand what it is that we are holding onto and what it is that we are doing that is actually counter-revolutionary.

So, for example, I would like all the people in here -- and I think that a good number of you will stand up -- but I would like all of the people in here who are racist to stand up.

Racist.

Racist.

Those of you who are sitting down, you have work to do.

You've got work to do.

Because you can't be growing up in this system here and not be racist.

It's not possible.

It's not your fault.

But you can't do anything to transform it if you can't even acknowledge it.

I need you to say, "Hello, my name is _____ and I am a racist." I need you to say it. [Crowd does.]

Thank you.

That is the beginning of us being able to begin that transformational and revolutionary process. We have to be able to acknowledge that we've got so much crap inside of us that prevents us from being able to be the people that we're striving to be all day long that we've been programmed by our media, we've been programmed by our magazines, by our movies, by the books we read, by the curriculum that we learn in our schools, we have been programmed to be racist against each other and against ourselves. And if we don't deal with that programming, then we're going to be killing more people in more countries and in this country as the generations progress. So we have to acknowledge what's going on. That's where the revolution starts. That is where the revolution starts.

So you've got to understand what is not revolutionary -- when we're sitting here running around talking about being in a revolution. It is not revolutionary to have a president drop a microphone and then drop a bunch of bombs on a bunch of people across this earth. It's not revolutionary for us to not criticize a president simply because he's a Black man. And to hold on to him as somebody who's too important to criticize because he got swag, because he's walking around with a good looking face and a smooth voice. It's not revolutionary for us to criticize the [former] Secretary of State and act like that man is not her president, to act like that man is not her boss. That coup in Honduras that she supported? He supported that s**t too.

And I want you to understand that when you don't fight for the people of Honduras, you are fighting against me.

If you don't stand with the people of Rawanda, then you don't stand with me. You stand against me.

Those are my brothers and sisters in Rawanda. Those are my brothers and sisters in Honduras. Those are my brothers and sisters in Haiti. Those are my brothers and sisters in Iraq. Those are my brothers and sisters in Libya. Those are my brothers and sisters in Syria.

It don't matter that they are on the other side of the world.

Buttons are nice. T-shirts are nice. Slogans are great.

Those are not revolutionary.

Throwing on a T-shirt does not make you a revolutionary.

You might be a revolutionary who throws on a T-shirt but throwing on a T-shirt does not make you a revolutionary.

Okay?

We have been very much, I've noticed a lot of Bernie supporters in here, right?

I'm about to hurt your feelings again. I don't like to hurt your feelings but I want you to know I didn't come here to make you'll feel good -- that's not what I came here to do today.

I came here to push a little bit.

I came her to challenge because the reality is that if we don't get this s**t right, we're gonna have the loss of our shores. We're gonna have the loss of half of our species -- plant and animals species. We're gonna have bombs exploding all over this country within the next year.

We've got to get this right.

We've got to understand what we're up against, okay?

Now I want to read you just the first paragraph of an article that was written and posted in May of last year at BLACK AGENDA REPORT by brother Bruce Dixon who I believe is here. [Amid clapping, Bruce Dixon stands.]

Alright.

Alright.

The title of this article is "Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democratic Party:"

The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to the left of the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination. Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box.
[. . .]
Vermont senator and ostensible socialist Bernie Sanders is playing the sheepdog candidate for Hillary Clinton this year. Bernie's job is to warm up the crowd for Hillary, herding activist --

Any activists in here?

-- herding activists energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2016 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils.

Anybody been hearing anybody talk about the lesser of two evils today? Anybody heard talk over this summer, over the summer of 2016? And I know the idea -- the idea that Bernie would be working in this entire system while he's telling us that he's against us is a hard idea but this is the reality: It doesn't even matter. And let me tell you why it doesn't matter: It doesn't matter because all of us are here. Bernie still served that purpose as a beacon and he pulled millions of unactivated people and got them involved in the system. He still caused millions of people to understand that we are living in a corrupt system. He caused us to find each other. Now we are prepared with the collectiveness to change this world.

SPUTNIK doesn't know s**t

The always embarrassing SPUTNIK 'NEWS' just got even more embarrassing on Sunday with a 'report' that insisted:

As was first noticed by The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald via Twitter: John Aravosis, the editor of the pro-Hillary AMERICAblog and a former colleague of the presidential candidate during his time with the Children’s Defense Fund, penned an attack editorial against Jill Stein on Saturday alleging that the anti-war Green Party candidate was somehow in league with Russia.

The article begins by noting that she visited Moscow last winter to attend a conference hosted by RT, which Aravosis calls "the Russian state propaganda organ" in order to call for an end to decades-long war and a militaristic policy that favors defense spending over serving the needs of the people.

So Sunday morning at 11:39 AM, Glenn Greenwald was the first to notice the post?

We kind of think many people noticed it before then, noticed it when it went up.

More importantly, Marcia called it out Saturday with "McCarthyism from John Aravosis" at 10:06 p.m.

That means Marcia called it out before Glenn Glenn.

How typical of SPUTNIK to ignore an African-American lesbian in their rush to nuzzle the crotch of a White gay man.

In fairness to SPUTNIK, Glenn did write about it earlier than they note.

He Tweeted about it 14 hours before we wrote this.

Of course, Marcia blogged about it 20 hours before we wrote this.

A reason to vote for Donald Trump?

If you're looking for a reason to vote for Donald Trump (I'm not, he won't get my vote), one may have just been provided.

Former CIA director Mike Morrell has publicly slammed Donald Trump (GOP presidential nominee) to endorse Hillary Clinton (Democratic Party presidential nominee).

The slimy CIA is, of course, infamous for lying to the American people.

They're infamous for lying to the Congress.

And they're infamous for lying to the White House.

All they do is lie.

So maybe the CIA just provided you with a reason to vote for Donald Trump?

Jill Stein's acceptance speech

Jill Stein is now the Green Party's presidential candidate. Here is her acceptance speech delivered Saturday.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 6, 2016

Contact:
Meleiza Figueroa, Press Director - melfig@jill2016.com

Transcript of Dr. Jill Stein's Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech at Green Party National Convention

Thank you so much. This is what democracy looks like. This is what political revolution looks like.
Thank you so much you for being here today and for leading the charge for an America and a world that works for all of us, a world that puts people, planet and peace over profit.

I am honored beyond words to be your candidate in this election. I’m honored to be running for President of the United States with the Green Party, the one national party that stands up for the people, and that’s been ahead of the curve in so many ways - on climate change and green energy, on marriage equality, free public higher education and health care as human rights, on stopping the Trans Pacific Partnership, on reparations for slavery, opposing Saudi war crimes in Yemen, and Israeli human rights abuses and occupation in Palestine, on recognizing indigenous rights. I want to recognize the heroes who have kept the party going through thick and thin. Please stand if you are a part of a Green Party organization - at the local, state or national level.

It’s also so exciting to be running in alliance with the Bernie Sanders movement that lives on outside the Democratic Party. We owe you such a debt of gratitude for getting the revolution going. And then for refusing to be shut down. It’s so exciting to run with you and for you. Please stand up if you’re coming here from the Bernie Sanders campaign.

It’s an honor to be your candidate running alongside Ajamu Baraka, a powerhouse of human rights –who brings a lifetime of dedication to racial and economic justice. And I thank Dr. Cornel West, for bringing his powerful voice into the campaign. And it’s an honor to run along with so many inspirational state and local candidates running for office. If you are running for office would you please stand?

It’s an honor to be your candidate in this historic moment, of unprecedented crisis and unstoppable momentum for transformational change so we can solve those crises. And we have an historic opportunity, an historic responsibility to be the agents of that change. As Martin Luther King said, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." I know that arc is bending in us, and through us. And we are actors in something much bigger than us as we struggle for justice, for peace, for community, for healing.

That arc of justice is moving through us as we mobilize to make black lives matter, and to end violent policing – as the Frisco Five and the Millions March NYC just did. The arc of justice is moving through us as we sit in and lock down to stop fracking pipelines, fossil fuel bomb trains, coal and LNG export terminals, and all manner of fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure.

The arc of justice was moving through us in Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love was overrun by love and revolution, as the Bernie or Bust movement declared independence from the Democratic Party, and merged with our campaign in rally after rally, growing stronger by the hour. The power of this movement was clear during our Power Rally at FDR Park, where nature erupted in thunder and lightning as our rally drew to a close, and the heavens opened up as if to say, "get ready, there’s a big change coming." We sought shelter in a nearby highway underpass and we kept going. This movement is unstoppable.

So here we are, a movement for justice and democracy that’s sweeping the planet. From living wage campaigns, to fossil fuel blockades, to the fight to end mass incarceration, to cancel student debt, to restore the rights of immigrant rights, indigenous rights, LGBTQ and women’s rights and disability rights. Across the globe people are rising up like we haven’t seen for generations.

We face unprecedented crises that call for transformational solutions, a new way forward based on democracy, justice and human rights. And that won’t come from corporate political parties funded by predatory banks, war profiteers and fossil fuel giants. It will come from we the people, mobilized in a broad social movement, with an independent voice of political opposition, because, as Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has. It never will.” And we must be that demand.

They say we’re in a recovery but in fact it’s an emergency. We’ve lost good jobs - replaced by part time and temporary jobs. A generation of young people is locked in predatory student debt. Black lives are on the firing line. Immigrants face mass deportation. Wars for oil are blowing back at us with a vengeance. And the climate meltdown threatens civilization as we know it in our lifetimes.
Meanwhile, the super-rich party on, richer than ever. Twenty-two of these super-rich people have the wealth equivalent to half of the US population. And the political elite that serve the economic elite are making things worse, inflicting austerity on everyday people while they squander trillions on wars, Wall Street bail outs, and tax favors for the wealthy.

No wonder people are in revolt. And the good news is that we actually have the power to turn this around, the minute we stand up with the courage of our convictions. Because we have the vision and values of the American people. And, as a broad coalition for justice, we have the numbers to win the day.

Here’s how. There are 43 million young people – and not so young people – who are locked in predatory student debt, with no prospects for getting out. And there is only one candidate who will cancel that debt – and you’re looking at her. And by the way, we bailed out Wall Street, the guys who crashed the economy with their waste, fraud and abuse. It’s about time we bailed out the young people who are the victims of that abuse. So if young people come out on election day 2016 to vote green to cancel their debt, they can actually take over the election, not only to cancel student debt, but to advance the whole agenda for justice. And the world will be a better place for it! And millennials are the self organizing demographic that can do this.

So we do have the power to end student debt, and to make public higher education free. This is the right thing to do to provide the younger generation with economic security in the 21st century, just like free high school education provided security in the 20th century. And it pays for itself by a 7:1 margin, as the results of the GI bill demonstrated following the 2nd World War.

We also have the power to create emergency jobs program, with 20 million living wage jobs as part of a Green New Deal. It’s like the New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression… but a Green New Deal to fix the climate crisis as well as the economic crisis. It creates a wartime level mobilization to green our energy, food and transportation systems, and restore critical infrastructure, including ecosystems. And we’ll do this in the needed time frame – by achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030, and implementing an immediate moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration. This will revive our economy, turn the tide on climate change, and make wars for oil obsolete, which enables us to cut the military budget to pay for this. In addition, it saves so much money by preventing the fossil fuel-linked diseases like asthma, heart attacks, strokes, cancer and more, it actually pays for itself in health savings alone.

We can create health care as a human right through an improved Medicare for All system of everybody in, nobody out, and you’re covered head to toe and cradle to grave. You get your choice of doctor and hospital, and you and your doctor are put back in charge of your health decisions, not a profiteering insurance company CEO.

We must support the disabled members of our community, to ensure they have the needed support, treatment, housing, health care and jobs that enable them to be fully contributing members of society, and respect their human dignity.

We can revive public education by fully funding it and ensuring kids come to school ready to learn – nourished, healthy and free from poverty, the biggest obstacle to learning. And we must end the high stakes testing that is harmful especially to challenged learners, and used to justify closing and privatizing schools, and to disempower teachers and unions. It’s time to provide small classrooms, to pay our teachers well, to honor their unions, and to teach to the whole student for lifetime learning – with enriched with arts, music and recreation, and nurture the independent, creative minds and spirits that Democracy depends on.

We can create a welcoming path to citizenship for undocumented Americans who are critical to the diversity and vitality of our communities, economy and culture. We must end the shameful night raids, detentions and deportations of hard working, law abiding immigrants. In fact, one of the most important things we can do to fix the immigration crisis is to stop causing it in the first place with predatory policies like NAFTA, the war on drugs, military interventions, CIA-supported coups and US trained death squads.

We say to Donald Trump, we don’t need no friggin wall. We just need to stop invading other countries. And by the way, the Republicans are the party of hate and fear mongering.

But Democrats are the party of night raids, detentions, and deportations.

We will put an immediate halt to deportations, detentions and night raids for people whose only crime was to flee the poverty and violence created by predatory US policies across the border.

And we can end racist violence and brutality not only in policing, but in courts and prisons, and in the economy at large. We can start by ensuring every community has a police review board, so communities control their police, and not the other way around. And communities must have dedicated investigators so every death or serious injury at the hands of police is investigated. And we must end the racist war on drugs, treat substance abuse as a health issue not a criminal problem, and discharge from our prisons the hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders who shouldn’t be locked up in the first place.

We call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to get to the bottom of the crisis of racism, and to provide reparations to acknowledge the enormous debt owed to the African American community for the unimaginable price they paid in building this country and sustaining our economy for generations while they were denied dignity and freedom.

We must end the assault on our privacy, on freedom of the press, on the free internet, and end the war on whistleblowers, and free the political prisoners - that includes Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Jeffrey Sterling, and Edward Pinkney, whose only crime was to stand up against the theft of public resources from Benton Harbor, one of the poorest communities in the nation, by the Whirlpool Corporation.

And finally we can create a foreign policy based on international law, diplomacy and human rights, not on global military and economic domination, which has been catastrophic. This policy will have cost us $6 trillion dollars including the costs of caring for our wounded veterans, which translates to $75,000 per American household on average. Over a million people have died in Iraq alone, which is not winning us hearts and minds in the Middle East. And tens of thousands of US soldiers have been killed or maimed. And what do we have to show for it? Failed states, worse terrorist threats, and mass refugee migrations that are tearing the EU and the Middle East apart.
More of the same failed war on terror is not the answer. It’s time to stop ISIS in its tracks and end the Wars for Oil with a new kind of offensive in the Middle East, a Peace Offensive – including a weapons embargo to the Middle East, and a freezing of the bank accounts of countries that are funding international jihadism, including the Saudi’s, who comprised 15 of 19 9/11 attackers, and who were identified as still the leading funder of Sunni extremist terrorism worldwide in State Department cables signed by Hillary Clinton in 2009, released by Wikileaks.

It’s important to recognize where this violent extremist threat came from in the first place. A global terrorist movement linked to Saudi wahhabism was an idea cooked up CIA and Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan to grow the Mujaheddin to stop the Soviet Union. And it has continued with Saudi schools – madrassas – that continue to be a recruiting and training ground fortomorrow’s terrorists.”

We can’t simultaneously fight terrorism with one hand, while we and our allies fund terrorism, train terrorists and arm terrorists with the other. The only ones benefitting from this catastrophic policy are the war profiteers themselves, who are calling the shots in foreign policy by funding the establishment parties and their politicians. In fact, US foreign policy has become fundamentally a marketing strategy for the weapons industry. We started the terrorist threat. Now it’s time to shut it down. That is what our campaign alone will do.

This is the world we can create outside of the two corporate parties sponsored by predatory banks, fossil fuel giants and war profiteers. So it’s time to vote for our deeply held beliefs, not against what we fear. Because that politics of fear has delivered everything we’re afraid of. All the reasons you were told you had to vote for the lesser evil – so we wouldn’t get the massive Wall Street bail outs, the offshoring of our jobs, the meltdown of the climate, the endless wars, the attack on civil liberties and on immigrant rights – all of that we’ve gotten by the droves, because we allowed ourselves to be silenced, and to let the lesser evil speak for us.

But the lesser evil paves the way for greater evil, because people don’t come out to vote for lesser evil politicians who are throwing them under the bus – even if someone else could be even worse. Democracy needs a moral compass. We must be that moral compass.

The clock is ticking, and this is the Hail Mary moment. In this election we’re not just deciding what kind of world we will have. We’re deciding whether we’ll have a world or not in the future. The day of reckoning is drawing closer – on climate change, on endless war, on nuclear weapons, and the next economic meltdown. We’re accelerating into all of these crises under Republican and Democratic rule. So It’s time to reject the lesser evil and fight for the greater good – like our lives depend on it, because they do.

That means join our campaign – at jill2016.com. Help us get into the debates, help us get the word out by social media and break into mainstream press. Help us phone bank, canvass, bring a campus event to your college or a superrally to your region.

The corporate parties are not going to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Together we can build an America and a world that works for us all, that puts people, planet and peace over profit. The power to create this world is not just in our hopes. Not just in our dreams. Right here. Right now. It’s in our hands. And together, we are unstoppable.