Dave is ba-a-a-c-c-k-k! In this week’s videocast Dave takes a look at the GOP. The GOP has over the last several years identified itself with white supremacists, big money, voter suppression, and an anti-government movement. How much longer can a political party supporting such an offensive platform continue as a viable force in U.S. politics.
Since Joe Biden’s inauguration the federal government has put 100,000,000 COVID-19 vaccines in arms of Americans. Some people don’t want to get it because Trump has been publicly “anti-vaccer.” But now even this last week the fat orange one told his people to go get the vaccine, after it came out that Melania and Donald got their vaccines, a couple months ago in secret. Well as usual Donald is a day late and a dollar short. Let’s stay focused folks, let’s don’t break ranks now, we are so close to having this Pandemic behind us. Do the patriot thing, wear a mask and get vaccinated, it’s the American thing to do!
https://www.calamitypolitics.com/2019/01/02/value-of-vaccinations/
T.K. McNeil is at it again. The Offspring take the L.A.P.D to task in one of today’s CalamityPolitics.com Jukebox Choice(s) of the Day. I have posted the lyrics below.
https://www.calamitypolitics.com/2021/01/24/black-sabbath-paranoid/
Another lazy Sunday. T. K. McNeil offered up half a dozen songs for the Calamity Jukebox Choice of the Day. So, here we go. Lyrics below. Enjoy! DSM
Today’s Calamity Politics Jukebox Choice of the Day is “Psychosocial” by Slipknot and comes from the twisted mind of Calamity herself. There are just some days that you need the dark lyrics of a group like Slipknot. The group has been breaking guitars for over 25 years and show no signs of slowing down. The guys behind the masks have proven they are talented songwriters and performers. In 2020 Slipknot was voted the ‘Best Band in the World’ by NME. The band’s last three albums have reached number one in the US Billboard Top 200 charts. Their live shows are legendary for both production and energy. Enjoy! Lyrics are below. DSM
David Shadrick has a lot to say about the proposed $15 Minimum Wage. His points make sense, hear him out. Thanks for supporting CalamityNewsandPolitics.com
No nation has ever been completely peaceful, no matter what some might like to claim. As though in a self-aware correction to this, some don’t even bother to try and appear civilized, such as the Mongols or the Spartans. Others go through periods of stability, though the next invasion, rebellion, conquest or border war isn’t a matter of if, but when.
One of the main perpetrators of the meat-grinder of Europe was Russia or, as it was known for the majority of the century, the Soviet Union. That doesn’t mean the Czarist period was a picnic, either. Under the czars, someone was always fighting or planning to fight, someone else. Even during the days of the purges, the threat of being purged surely was enough to make a lot of people angry. Russia, is a direct rebuke to the notion of history progressing in a linear trajectory. Putin’s Russia more closely resembles 1961 than the first attempts at democratization in 1991. If anything they are moving backwards. Now, as then, there are those opposing the government, often at risk to their lives by way of assassination by the state. One such death-defying rebel is Alexi Navalny.
The legacy of Zitkala-Sa lives on as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century. She left an influential theory of Indian resistance and a crucial model for reform. It was the activism of Zitkala-Sa that made possible crucial changes to education, health care, and legal standing for Native American people and the preservation of Indian culture.
Zitkala-Sa’s Literary Work“Much of Zitkala-Sa’s work is characterized by its transitional nature: tensions between tradition and assimilation, between literature and politics. These tensions are most notable in her autobiographical works. In her well-known “American Indian Stories”, for example, she both expresses a literary account of her life and delivers a political message. The narrative expresses her tension between wanting to follow the traditions of the Yankton Dakota while being excited about learning to read and write, and being tempted by assimilation. This tension has been described as generating much of the dynamism of her work.” Wikipedia
Zitkala-Sa was an American Indian woman who was an influential voice for indigenous people. Red Bird was a writer, editor, translator, composer, musician, educator, and political activist. She struggled with her cultural identity and took that struggle to the written page. She also wrote books about traditional Native American myths and stories. Her writings were well-known to a white English-speaking readership. She is considered among one of the most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century.
Zitkala-Sa was born February 22, 1876 on the Yankton Dakota Reservation in South Dakota. Zitkala-Sa means “Red Bird”. She was later given the missionary name of Gertrude Simmons. Ellen Simmons, a Yankton Dakota woman whose Dakota name was Thate Ivohiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind) was her mother. Her father was a German-American man who left the family when Zitkala-Sa was very young. Gertrude later married Raymond Bonnin and is often known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin.
Here is this week’s www.calamitynewsandpolitics.com Video cast and Dave’s take on our freezing temperatures and climate change. The cold snap nationwide is awful so Mr. Shadrick has some words of encouragement and hope during this trying time. Blessings to everyone still struggling!
https://www.calamitypolitics.com/2021/02/10/david-shadrick-impeachment-deja-vu/
No one is perfect, including and especially those who claim to be. It is usually a mistake to meet one’s hero’s, particularly because it is difficult for anyone to live up to the hype. No where is this more true than with political leaders and martyrs. Many is the celebrated later found out to hold some less than savory ideas or to have done some strange things.
One of the few cases this has worked in reverse is the legacy of Lord Byron who, while largely thought of as a swaggering sex-mad dandy, was also a strong advocate for the labor movement and republican ideals, and was mostly against the church and war in general. A labor supporting, anti-monarchist, Republican pacifist not the safest thing to be in 19th century Britain. An American early civil rights leader that has had a morphing of his image recently is the famous and infamous 1950-1960’s civil rights activist Malcolm X. In your case you are interested, Malcolm took the last name of “X” because he had no way to trace his African ancestral family name. That ancestral name has been lost to history because of the slave trade.
It is difficult to understate the influence Malcolm X had on the struggle for racial reckoning in the early 20th century. Still held up as an example along with other Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and the lesser known, but no less important, Medgar Evers. Malcolm is the most controversial. Preaching a ‘by any means necessary’ approach to race relations. Such ‘means’ included violence against the police and the state, as well as anyone else who threatened black lives. X also propagated the idea of black separatism, and even black nationalism. Not in America mind you, despite being a believer in so-called ‘black supremacy’ at the time, he wasn’t arguing that black people should take over America, so much as form their own nation separate from it. He was often very critical of the mainstream Civil Rights movement, particularly due to its principle of non-violence and preference for racial integration, particularly in terms of schooling.
While generally associated with the 1960s many of the most controversial statements made by Malcolm X, were made in the early 1950’s. The 1950’s was a time of ardent racism in America, when the notorious Jim Crow laws were at their full strength. For context, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in 1955. Malcolm X first came to attention with his fiery rhetoric in 1952. While it in no way takes back or erases some of his more unsavory statements, it is important to keep in mind that he was 27 years old at the time. An adult to be sure but, as anyone who has made it to the saner side of 30 can attest, with age can come perspective.
By the early 1960s, Malcolm X had distanced himself from the controversial and notoriously violent Nation of Islam. Instead he converted to Sunni Islam, generally considered the more moderate of the Islamic paths. It was a first step on a path to reform. The once violent firebrand embraced the explicitly non-violent mainstream Civil Rights movement, as put forward by King and Evers after completing the Hajj to Mecca.
In February 1965 Malcolm X was gunned down in Harlem during a speaking engagement. It has been believed for decades that members of the Nation of Islam assassinated Malcolm X, due to the severely strained relationship. Two Nation of Islam members were convicted in Malcolm X’s murder. On the other hand King and Evers were both killed by Klansmen. If anything, showing the backlash from angered white people was not the only threat the Civil Rights movement faced, and it is, therefore, even more impressive it managed to largely succeed.
Fifty-six years after his murder new evidence has come to light as I write this piece, indicating that the FBI and the NYPD were involved in the killing of Malcolm X. A retired NYPD undercover officer admitted in a death bed confession that he had been responsible for making sure that Malcolm X’s security detail was arrested before the assassination. The confession further states this move would guarantee Malcolm X would have no door security at the Audubon Ballroom where he was killed. Malcolm’s family is asking the murder investigation be re-opened. In a separate case, last year the Manhattan DA began reviewing the convictions of those Nation of Islam members convicted of Malcolm’s murder as part of an Innocent Project request.
“Several months ago, the Manhattan District Attorney initiated a review of the investigation and prosecution that resulted in two convictions for the murder of Malcom X. The NYPD has provided all available records relevant to that case to the District Attorney. The Department remains committed to assist with that review.” At this point the best I can say is, time will tell, as to who killed Malcolm X one of the heroic voices of the civil right movement.
"If puppies and kittens don't make you smile, you might consider therapy." D. S. Mitchell 2015.
Self-isolating has forced us to turn even more to telecommunication and social media.
The Major Cause Of Sex Trafficking Is Poverty
Many great charities, here are a couple that I support: Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
