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Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Three)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front

Introduction and Part One Part Two

PART THREE: Ethical Problems

Law Enforcement Conduct

The first thing that jumps out—the thing everyone talks about first and foremost about the raid—was Hawks’ murder of Twice. Murder is a controversial word in this context, I know, but I stand by it: regardless of his guilt or his intent, Bubaigawara Jin was a fleeing man who Hawks made a cold, rational decision to quite literally stab in the back. In that moment, Hawks appointed himself as an executioner of the state and murdered a man without due process—no trial, no judge, no nothing. It was an extrajudicial killing,[26] and while I know many people in the U.S. have gotten kind of jaded about that sort of thing, let me assure you that police brutality is still police brutality even when it’s being exercised against people who have committed crimes.

To illustrate this, allow me to share a few more excerpts from the Penal Code:

Assault and Cruelty by Specialized Public Employees: When a person performing or assisting in judicial, prosecutorial or police duties commits, in the performance of their duties, an act of assault or physical or mental cruelty upon the accused, suspect or any other person, imprisonment or imprisonment without work for not more than 7 years is imposed.

Abuse of Authority Causing Death or Injury by Specialized Public Employees: A person who commits a crime prescribed under the preceding Article and thereby causes the death or injury of another person is dealt with by the punishment for the crimes of injury or the punishment prescribed in the preceding Article, whichever is severer.

The punishments for Criminal Injury are imprisonment for not more than fifteen years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen or, if the injury results in death, imprisonment for not less than three years. That’s really what Hawks ought to be looking at for Twice's murder, save that apparently heroes just aren't liable for this stuff, otherwise they'd be up against it all the time in the course of “fighting villains.” Certainly, Hawks doesn’t seem to have faced any repercussions thus far, beyond having to apologize in a press conference.

Now, again, many American readers of My Hero Academia are deeply embedded in a culture that normalizes police violence, and so there is a lot of callous handwaving about how Hawks did the right thing because Jin was a significant threat. In response to such dismissal, let me provide a few more numbers:

In the U.S. in 2019, law enforcement killed over a thousand people.

In the same year in Japan, law enforcement killed two. Two people.

In the U.S., a major factor in how police keep skating on these deaths is the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is nominally intended to protect officers from frivolous lawsuits in cases where they’re ruled to be acting in “good faith,” a vague ruling which has made successful prosecution of police brutality and negligence all but impossible.

Japan, and I cannot stress this enough, does not have this doctrine. The significance of law enforcement taking a life is not so casually brushed aside in other places in the world, so please don’t try to tell me that Horikoshi was trying to get across the idea that Hawks did the right thing, easy as that. The critical depiction of heroes and Hero Society dehumanizing their enemies is all over the manga.

When the Tartarus guards discuss what the government is doing about Gigantomachia, one of them complains that the higher-ups can’t use missiles—missiles!—on him because he’s quote-unquote-human.[27] During their battle at Kamino, All Might tells All For One that this time, he’s going to put him in a prison cell—he characterizes his attempt to kill All For One six years ago as a mistake. Even in the spin-off manga, Vigilantes, designated police representative Tsukauchi[28] looks absolutely aghast at Endeavor’s willingness to use lethal force against Pop Step, an innocent-until-proven-guilty minor, even though, at that time, they have all the evidence in the world that she is actively engaged in setting off bombs in populated areas.

Most prominent is the series’ treatment of the High End Noumu. The heroes rationalize them as corpses, monsters, inhuman, all in order to kill them guilt-free,[29] and this rationalization spills over to Shigaraki during the War Arc, as the chasm of understanding between heroes and villains reaches its most stark. Yet, that same arc was proceeded by the reveal of the truth about Kurogiri, which had Tsukauchi directly acknowledge that they may have misunderstood the Noumu as the series dangled the possibility that Kurogiri possesses lingering awareness from Shirakumo Oboro. Earlier, we had Ending, a man who wanted Endeavor to kill him and thought Endeavor would do it specifically because Endeavor killed the High End, and this act set him decisively apart from the non-murdery heroic norm. Even into the War Arc itself, we were getting new information on the Noumu: to wit, we were shown incontrovertible proof—in the form of Woman’s internal monologue in Chapter 268—that the High End Noumu do think.

Even if we assume the government has relaxed its prohibitions about public servants assaulting people in the course of carrying out their duty, it does not follow that Hawks’ extrajudicial execution was totally fine. Heroes are not supposed to kill because police are not supposed to kill, and in Japan, it isn’t assumed that they will the moment they run into resistance.

And look, this is not to say that Japanese police never get away with police brutality. Obviously, the country has its own problems with the issue, typically involving racism and ethnocentrism. But the way that some people in the fandom just brush off Jin’s death does a disservice to the way the series frames Hawks’ actions and what that framing is communicating to a Japanese reader.

Also, even putting aside the matter of his death, openly taunting a mentally ill man about how easy it was to fool him definitely pings me as an act of mental cruelty, though of course there’s no one to sue Hawks over that one, seeing as he murdered the victim and only witness. (Chapter 264)

That all said, there are other issues with the heroes’ actions during the raid. One is called out right in the text: Midnight acknowledges that the use of chemical agents is illegal, but calls upon Momo to engineer knock-out drugs to use against Gigantomachia anyway. Is that an action Momo will face any repercussions for at all? And if not, what does it imply about the setting that she won’t?

Here’s another big one: what’s the legality of heroes using their quirks against civilians? Because that’s what the vast majority of the PLF are, civilians. Oh, they’re suspects, sure, but throughout the manga, “heroes” aren’t set up as people who just fight any and every tiny crime they come across. From the very first chapter, heroes are set up as a specific counter to “evildoers” designated as “villains”—legally defined as people who use their quirks illegally two or more times.[30]

There is a very illuminating scene in the second chapter of Vigilantes in which Aizawa confronts Knuckleduster for his assault of a random businessman and, the moment he realizes Knuckleduster is quirkless, apologizes for the misunderstanding and walks away. If Knuckleduster doesn’t have a quirk, Knuckleduster by definition cannot be a villain, and thus, Aizawa is not authorized to throw down with him.[31] It’s somewhat unclear, not least because a lot of the evidence is in the more-interested-in-systemic-worldbuilding Vigilantes, but there is reason to believe that heroes are not allowed to use their quirks against people who are committing mundane crimes.[32] If anything, I should think that heroes only using their quirks on people who are using their quirks illegally is part of the philosophical scaffolding that gives heroes their moral authority—you see this argument from the first bearer of One For All, who loudly espouses that people not only should not use their quirks selfishly, but that quirks should only be used to help others. This kind of supposed selflessness is what MHA’s current society is built on.

To see the relevance here, consider Trumpet. Oh, he absolutely was using his quirk illegally, but can the system prove that?[33] After all, he only ever used it on allies—do you think they're in a big hurry to snitch on him? Do you think Mr. Compress is going to? And if the police can't prove Trumpet used his quirk illegally, then is he even a capital-V Villain? What about all those other rank and file types? Certainly we saw the ones at the villa fighting back with quirks, but what about those supporters at bases scattered around the country? Did they fight back, and if so, did they do it with quirks? If not, was it legal for them to be targeted by heroes?

More importantly, can they mount an argument on that, be it a legal or a moral one?

The Scope of the Operation

The next big ethical problem actually predates the raid itself, and it’s this: how did the Commission know where to target their raids? How did they obtain that information? Specifically, how many privacy violations were involved? It strains credulity well past my personal breaking point to imagine that Hawks and the Commission were able to get every name, every base of operations, especially given the limitations they were under—the fact that Hawks couldn’t communicate openly, the hard time limit before the PLF put their plan in motion, making sure they didn’t tip off someone in the massive secret organization that had people working in heroics, the government, the infrastructure, etc.—but let’s consider the sorts of avenues the HPSC did have available to them.

So to start with, they send in Hawks, who’s specifically trained to extract information from people without raising suspicion about his motives. Doubtlessly, he’s able to get all sorts of names,[34] starting with the higher-ups—not just Re-Destro and his inner circle, but also any of the advisors that e.g. run businesses that they invite him to patronize, MLA heroes, and so on. And with a decent crop of names in hand—let us assume for the sake of argument that Hawks had some way to communicate those names to his handlers—the HPSC can start doing background checks and digging in.

Where do these people come from? Where were they born, and, if they moved, where did they settle? Where do they work? What are their social pastimes? Trace the commonalities, look into publicly available records, use wiretaps…

Yes, the police in Japan can totally use wiretaps if they suspect organized criminal activity—it was one of the powers expanded significantly under that controversial 2017 law I footnoted earlier. One thing to note is that this does require a warrant, or at least the expectation that a judge will grant a warrant.[35] But how far does that go? Can they get a warrant for financial records? How about phone records? E-mail accounts?

Can they wiretap people for no reason save their association with a name Hawks provided? If a PLF member attends a Jazzercize class on Thursday mornings, does every member of that class start noticing a weird little reverb on their phone calls for a week? Does Re-Destro’s hometown have an influx of people poking around evaluating its potential as a place to live? If Slidin’ Go once snatched your dog out of traffic and you subsequently bought a Slidin’ Go keychain, are you and your family now under investigation?

Getting details on people like the CEO of Detnerat and the head of the Hearts & Minds Party is probably pretty straightforward; heck, investigating Kizuki Chitose’s publication history was probably a goldmine in and of itself. That sort of surveillance gets more complicated and difficult to justify—and to make credible to the reader—the further down the chain of command you go, though. Sooner or later, the HPSC would have had to make a call: knowing that they don’t have the time, freedom, and resources to perfectly get only and exactly everyone that’s a real threat, do they overcompensate or do they undercompensate?

You only have to look at Hero Society to know which answer they were going to go with.[36]

To be fair, undercompensating, while it clearly would have been easier on their strained resources, ran the risk of leaving threats out there to come back to bite them later. They likely thought that they’d done enough undercompensating for Shigaraki Tomura, compounded by the fact that apparently there hadn’t been enough done about Destro’s followers back in the day, either. I mean, better to grab everyone and then let the courts sort it out, right? Rather than risk innocents getting hurt?

Well, let’s talk about innocents. Innocents, and the costs of overcompensating.

Pictured: a man who was in daily close contact with the leader of the movement and who was at one point in time in possession of a copy of the movement's manifesto. (Chapter 218)

The problem with grabbing everyone in a group, even the most obviously PLF-aligned groups, is that there are always going to be both people who don’t seem to know anything because they’re very good at living double lives and aren’t particularly active on the recruitment front, and people who don’t seem to know anything because they legitimately don’t know anything.

The Gunga Villa is straightforward enough—on paper, it was probably reserved for a business retreat for four months, because you certainly wouldn’t want some random newlywed couple booked for a nice mountain honeymoon recognizing Shigaraki Tomura wandering around. Same story for the employees; the MLA wouldn’t have put the League up at the villa if there was a chance that anyone there would rat them out. So I think we can assume relatively fairly that anyone in the building the day of the conference is solidly implicated, whatever their claims might be otherwise.

Of course, plenty might well try to claim that they were just there for the vacation, or just started work last week and had no idea the place was a nest for conspiracy, but that was where Hawks spent most of his time, and most of the people at the villa presumably fought back against the heroes. It might be a complicated process, matching hero eyewitness testimony to every person there, but you can at least sort of see the path to it.

Other groups, however, are a lot less straightforward. Consider the following categories:

The Liberated Districts

As I discussed earlier, Deika was presumably a high watermark on societal saturation, but Deika still only counted 90% of the population as “Liberation Warriors, lying in wait.” That leaves 10% unaccounted for. So who are those 10%? Are they children?[37] Some children too young to know anything about the PLF, and some old enough to know but not yet old enough to be considered warriors for the cause? Are they instead elderly people, maybe remnants from when the MLA first started to infiltrate the town that have just never had enough close family or social life to get pulled into the Liberation Army by the usual vectors?

By far the worst option is if Trumpet’s 90% accounts for anyone even remotely connected to the MLA—that would mean one out of every ten people in Deika is legitimately completely ignorant of what the powers that be had brought in. How on earth are you supposed to tell those people apart from the other 90% when the heroes sweep in and arrest absolutely everyone? Or are we to believe that the HPSC had time to get in an agent to flash a covert L-sign at everyone in town and they only arrested people who visibly acknowledged it?

These problems only get worse for our hypothetical town that’s 70% PLF. That opens you up to far more people who have only recently started getting drawn in. Consider the disaffected twenty-something whose family has no idea what’s been keeping him out so late in the evenings. The young mother who met the nicest and most convincing people via the daycare, but whose husband is always out of town on business trips so she hasn’t had time to introduce him to anyone. The working parents who just joined up and whose kid, away at hero school, doesn’t know anything—yet.[38]

Evaluating these peoples’ social circles and financial history for other PLF attachments is going to turn up a ludicrous number of false positives unless the Commission can narrow down exactly when and where such people crossed paths with the ideology of Liberation. So many people would have been raised to it, people whose entire lives are suspect, but mistaking even one new recruit for a lifelong loyalist gives you exponentially more avenues to baselessly suspect people—and as established, the Commission just doesn’t have the time to be overly discerning.

Detnerat, Shoowaysha, and Feel Good Inc.

This is another line of attack that seems like it should be a bullseye, but is actually quite the opposite. Detnerat is a business that is run by the leader of the entire movement, yet the fact that not everyone who works there is a member of the MLA is one of the very first things we find out about them! Miyashita was something akin to a personal aide or secretary to Rikiya, someone Rikiya liked well enough that he was on the verge of introducing Miyashita to his other friends—and Miyashita didn’t know the first thing about his boss’s true affiliations. It’s patently obvious from that alone that not everyone at Detnerat is PLF, and it's likely that the numbers of the faithful are even thinner at Curious and Skeptic's outfits, where they're high-ranked executives but, crucially, not actually in charge.

This is, of course, complicated further by the fact that people who work at e.g. a publishing house are probably there because they agree with that publishing house’s politics, whether or not they know what’s going on behind the scenes. Ditto with Detnerat—certainly there would be people there who just needed a job and could charm their way through an interview without an inner passion for the work, but loads of people probably work there because they legitimately believe in the company’s ethos. So how do you tell people who have relatively radical personal politics without having any idea about the terrorism apart from the people who are absolutely PLF/ex-MLA but who are now lying about it because their organization's cover is blown and the response to that is, “Well, time to go back underground!”

The Hearts & Minds Party

Membership of this party would seem to be a good indicator, but using it that way too unquestioningly is also very flawed. This is because the HMP particularly is probably an excellent recruitment tool for the MLA/PLF. The note above about having radical political beliefs but still being ignorant about the planned acts of terror is especially true for the HMP. The Commission cannot just pull the voting records and arrest all of them because plenty of them are going to be totally ignorant of what was really going on with the heart of the party, only joining up because they believed in the kinds of things the HMP was platforming on—less repressive quirk use laws, prison reform, very possibly issues like the abolishment of the legal category “villain” or greater social safety nets. Just because someone votes for those things, doesn’t mean they know about or would support the MLA’s violent extremism or the PLF’s anarchic goals.

So at what level of initiation does the Commission call a cut-off? How long does someone have to have been voting straight-ticket HMP for them to be considered condemned by that association?

Over and over again, the question arises: how did the heroes and the police distinguish the initiated from the uninitiated? And given that Japan’s legal system at least nominally requires that guilt be proven, what are they going to do when huge numbers of those people claim innocence?

The Presupposition of Guilt

Let’s take a few minutes to circle back to what I talked about earlier, the presumption of guilt and how it relates to arrests, convictions, and the perception of arrestees in Japan. This is going to swerve hard back towards real-life Japan issues for a bit, but it is exceptionally relevant when examining what’s likely to happen to the people arrested in the raids, innocent and guilty alike, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.

In Japan, the rate of conviction is extraordinarily high—if you’re in anime fandom and active in social justice circles, you may have seen the tumblr posts about the country’s famed 99.9% conviction rate.[39] There are a range of explanations for this. Defenders argue that, compared to police in many other countries, police in Japan are very cautious and don't move to prosecute unless a case is all but airtight; thus, many who are arrested may well be released without charge if there is even the slightest doubt that the case will hold up in court. One can easily see truth to this by looking at the numbers on how many people are arrested in Japan versus how many are actually charged: Wikipedia notes (albeit without citation) that in the U.S., roughly 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution, while in Japan the figure is only 17.5%.

Conversely, critics note that a major feature of convictions in Japan is the confession, and confessions can be coerced, particularly in the sorts of conditions that those imprisoned in pre-trial detention are kept—no legal representation, no contact with their families, loved ones or employers, no requirement that they be informed about what they’re being charged with, potential weeks upon weeks kept in isolation, sessions of questioning that can extend for most of the day.

There have also been cases in which confessions have been found to be falsified, for example by having the suspect sign a paper and then filling in or altering other details after the fact.

There are some other factors about confessions to be aware of here:

In Japan, it is not legally permissible for a suspect to be convicted solely based on their confession. The constitutional provision in this regard is something called himitsu no bakuro, the “revelation of secret.” The revelation of secret is something in the confession that is factually verifiable and which, at the time of the confession, only the suspect could have known. Common examples are things like the location of a previously undiscovered body or the time and location where a weapon used in the crime was purchased. The majority of verdicts that are overturned in Japan are overturned because of issues with a confession.

Sentencing is also very lenient compared to the U.S., particularly if the suspect was cooperative with police and admitted guilt (seen as showing remorse). Thus you wind up with a situation in which suspects believe that they’ll lose a case if they go to trial (because practically everyone does) and prosecutors—rather more aware of the weaknesses in a case than a confused and vulnerable layman—don’t want to bring a shaky case to trial, and thus both parties are invested in whatever will get the suspect out with a minimum of effort. The result of this is a high number of people released on “suspended prosecution,” which is an admission of guilt, but with a prosecutor's decision to show lenience while still establishing precedent for possible later offenses warranting more severe punishment. This is a particularly common result for first-time offenders, especially in non-violent crimes.

Note that suspended prosecution is not at all the same thing as being released for lack of evidence; a suspect is conceding their guilt by accepting the arrangement. However, many suspects who the police might not be confident in convicting are known to sign confessions and accept the arrangement regardless, because, along with fear for their livelihoods, it’s known that judges tend to view extended time in detention as a sign of guilt. Also too, if admitting guilt is seen as showing remorse, then maintaining one’s innocence is often perceived as a lack of remorse—leading to fears that fighting the charges will result not only in defeat, but also in harsher sentencing!

All of these factors combine into a problem with perception of guilt that feeds on itself endlessly at all levels. Let me use a run-on sentence to summarize: the general public views anyone who is even arrested as probably guilty, because the police are seen as generally only moving on those who are guilty, because police specifically only prosecute those who they can all but prove are guilty, but guilt can be “proven” by a sufficiently detailed confession, and while confessions are required to have some corroborating evidence, they can easily be falsified and may well be offered up with minimal resistance because the suspect is also convinced that judges will only be harsher on them if they put up a fight because suspects also believe that they will be convicted at trial because everyone knows the conviction rate is unbelievably high.

Japan likes to think of itself as a “safe” country, which is in large part why its deeply concerning arrest and detainment procedures have held up repeatedly in court. These things help keep people safe, after all, and who wouldn't want people to be safe?

Returning, then, to the matter of My Hero Academia and the Paranormal Liberation Front mass arrest, I don’t think it’s overstating things to claim that the dehumanization of villains and the glamorization of heroes has probably exacerbated these problems.

Cruel punishments are illegal under Article 36 of the Japanese constitution? But what if someone really, really deserves it, though? (Chapter 94)

You can see that willingness to shrug off civil rights violations as long as it means safety in the symbol All Might represents, a hero who is there to beat up baddies, not ask questions about why they're being bad. Ditto Tartarus, where the Bad People get put, regardless of whether their Bad really warrants so awful a punishment or whether the severity of such a punishment serves as an effective deterrent.[40]

As to the presupposition of guilt, if a hero thinks they saw someone Doing A Bad, and confidently testifies to that effect, who’s going to doubt them? It’s blunt to the point of headache-inducing that Midoriya Izuku, the boy who will be the greatest hero, who’s treated by the story as if he’s the first person in history to think about “saving” a “villain,” doesn’t even start to think about such a thing until he literally experiences a psychic impression of a five-year-old crying within the heart of Shigaraki Tomura.

At the press conference in Chapter 306, it’s illustrated numerous times that huge portions of society don’t particularly care about Dabi’s accusations. They don’t ask for Hawks to face justice for the murder he openly admits to committing; they don’t ask for apologies for the heroes’ wrongdoings. They ask for heroes to make them feel safe. Even if it means lying to them; even if it means asking Endeavor to go out there and “take down” his firstborn son. People are uneasy about the accusations, certainly, but what they want is not for heroes to take responsibility for their actions, to atone for them, but rather to deny that there’s any truth to the accusations at all.

This is not a society that, in the wake of Gigantomachia’s rampage, is going to be open to the possibility that some people caught up in the mass arrest are legitimately innocent and that everyone, even villains, deserves to be afforded the full extent of their rights.

The Dissolution of the HMP

Speaking of rights, let’s go over one that we can immediately see has been flagrantly violated in the manga compared to the state of real-life Japanese law—the overnight dissolution of the Hearts & Minds Party.

As discussed earlier, it's unlikely that every member is a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist. There are bound to be perfectly innocent people in the country who just so happen to agree with the HMP’s campaign platforms. Now, all of those people are going to turn on the evening news[41] and be blindsided with the news that their political party has just been dissolved and some enormous percentage of its membership arrested. This was not publicized or forewarned; it just happened, in a matter of hours. Do you think those people—people who are members of a party that specifically opposes the current status quo—are just going to nod and say, “Oh, wow, that sucks, but who am I to question the wisdom of the government and its agents? Time to find a new political party, I guess!” Would you?

I can assure you that you wouldn’t, because let me be clear: under current Japanese law, what we’re told happened to the HMP is unbelievably illegal—not only because they were dissolved at all, but particularly the speed with which that dissolution was carried out.

I mentioned earlier, in the section “Japan and Illegal Organizations,” that there were methods by which organizations can be dissolved. Now I’d like to look at that in more detail.

Any organization that’s been flagged as a potential threat—that “terroristic subversive activity” designation—can come under investigation from the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Their recommendations are then passed up for evaluation by a member of the Public Security Examination Commission,[42] who can pass a variety of prohibitions—the bans I mentioned earlier on printing activities, public assembly, and a few others. These prohibitions are issued in periods lasting up to six months, at which point they are re-evaluated and can be dismissed or renewed.

If the Public Security Examination Commission decides that the comparatively soft-pedal restrictions on freedom of the press or freedom of assembly are not sufficient to deter the organization in question from committing terroristic subversive activity continuously/repeatedly in the future, the Commission can elect to order the organization dissolved. This revokes their rights mentioned above entirely, and further stipulates that they liquidate their assets,[42] and that no member of or representative for the organization can take actions in the organization’s interest (e.g. things like opening bank accounts or buying property). The only exception to the latter restriction is a designated representative for the organization who is granted the right to manage its assets in the process of overseeing the dissolution.

Any of the designations above can be appealed, but dissolution is permanent until specifically overturned.

Now, it might well seem that the HMP could be targeted under the “advocating for subversive terroristic activity” criteria, but here’s the problem with that: that criteria is based on the organization engaging in/advocating for such terroristic subversiveness as an organizational activity—that is, the activity in question is a foundational, core aspect of the organization’s endeavors. And I simply don’t think that’s how the HMP operates. To reiterate, I believe they’re a recruitment tool, meant to siphon people into the MLA (later the PLF) proper, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate political party with real political aims, outreach, goals, and so on.

Of course, I can easily see the anger over all the destruction leading the Ministry of Justice to being heavy-handed in its response to the Paranormal Liberation Front and any organization even suspected of being associated with it, of which the HMP is the most prominent. I could also simply be wrong about what the HMP says at their rallies. Regardless of either of those possibilities, however, there is still the matter of the timetable.

There was a period in Japanese history that organizations—political parties especially—could be dissolved on the spot. The Meiji Constitution granted that right to the Minister of Home Affairs, a Cabinet position appointed by the Emperor, and indeed, any number of socialist, communist, or labor-oriented parties were banned and dissolved within scant months of their establishment for their alleged leftist or subversive leanings.[44] The Farmer-Labor Party of 1925 was dissolved three hours after its establishment! So clearly there’s some precedent—or at least, there was. Like many things, the power to summarily dissolve organizations did not survive the Meiji Constitution’s transformation into its modern-day incarnation after World War II.

The Subversive Activities Prevention Act, the same one that lays out the causes for dissolving an organization, also details a legally mandated process by which this dissolution is carried out. Most prominently, organizations cannot just be dissolved with no notice, no chance to defend themselves. Any disposition curtailing an organization's activities, from the bans on their printed material to complete dissolution, is required to be announced both via the government's official gazette[45] and, if the residence of a chief officer or representative of the organization is known, also via written notification. These notifications must be sent at least seven days before the hearing date—a hearing which, further, the organization has the legal right to send agents to in order to present statements and evidence in their own favor, as well as examine the evidence being presented against them.

This clearly did not happen. Bare minimum, Hanabata Koku, as leader of the Hearts & Minds Party, should have had an address the Commission could get ahold of, especially given all the snooping they so obviously must have been doing to unearth the extent of the PLF’s reach.

It’s instructive, in this regard, to look to history. To wit, I’ve said a lot about how gun-shy Japan is to dissolve organizations outright, thanks to its history of governmental repression—but how true is that really? If the government really wanted to, couldn’t it just decide to crack down on something and ride out the controversy? Has it done as much before?

To put all this into proper perspective: no. It hasn’t. The government has invoked the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against a group rather than individuals only once in all the time since the act was passed in 1952.

It was against Aum Shinrikyo, and it didn’t happen until seven months after the subway attacks. Even with nearly unanimous desire to prosecute, even though Aum had been under police surveillance prior to the attacks, even though lawsuits against them were and had been ongoing, meaning at least some measure of investigation was being done openly, it still took seven months to gather the evidence, submit it to the Public Safety Examination Commission, allow Aum their appeal, and enact the ruling. That’s because, in a society ordered by democratic processes, these things take time.[46]

But the HMP? No one who wasn’t a member knew about their affiliation with the League of Villains—much less an underground army!—until Hawks got the word out, and the Hero Public Safety Commission had to be rigorously careful that news of their investigations not leak because they knew they had their own moles to deal with. So far as we know, the Hearts & Minds Party remained a legit organization right up until the day of the raid. It is functionally impossible under current Japanese law for them to have been dissolved in the scant few hours between the commencement of the raid and the attack on Tartarus in which the two guards mention the dissolution.

Even if the relevant agency in the Ministry of Justice submitted their paperwork the absolute minimum of time in advance, there is no way the HMP and Trumpet—and therefore Re-Destro and the League and everyone else—shouldn’t have known that the government was moving against them. The only answer is that the Ministry of Justice was evading its legal obligation to notify both the public[47] and the HMP itself, or that the Japanese government, in the wake of the Advent of the Exceptional, throttled back on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms exactly the way human rights activists today are always warning about.

Stigma and Recidivism

In the same way that In Custody is not (or shouldn't be) a magic status effect preventing villains from escaping from police, In Jail is not an endgame state. Most people in prison are not there for life (or death) sentences, particularly not in Japan. Even if the majority of the PLF gets stuck in prison for decades, there will, eventually, be an “after” for them. So what happens “after”?

Well, like many countries, Japan has made efforts in the modern day to offer training classes and parole officers to help reacclimate ex-convicts into society once they’ve done their time, but it remains a difficult process, and the country has a relatively high recidivism rate. Given the stigma against criminals—present to a degree in all countries, but particularly exacerbated in Japan—it is frequently difficult for released prisoners to find stable housing or employment—both key factors helping to prevent recidivism.

So does MHA’s Japan have similar programs? Well, it’s hard to say, given that the only prison we’ve actually seen is Tartarus, which is obviously a poor model to base a lot of judgement on—save, of course, that any country that could develop a place like Tartarus is a country with an appalling deficit of care for criminals’ human rights, which doesn’t bode well for their other prisons.

Speaking of things that don’t bode well, though, we have two obvious examples in the canon of how convicted criminals fare: both Gentle Criminal and Twice are, it’s suggested, prosecuted for their foundational fuck-ups—Tobita for obstructing public duties[48] and Jin for his traffic infraction. It’s unclear whether they went to prison or not—given the relative lenience shown to first-time offenders, I’m inclined to think probably not—but even given these very mild offenses, their lives were turned completely upside-down, and no apparent efforts were made to help them through chaotic periods that saw Tobita apparently disowned and Jin losing his job.

Consider the harsh reactions they garnered and the apparent lack of assistance from any social structure despite the relative mildness of their wrongs, and things start to look very bad indeed for the PLF. Will there be any steps taken at all to deradicalize them? Does taking such steps seem likely, given what we've seen of MHA’s legal and carceral systems thus far? Further, if there is no plan for deradicalization, how exactly do the heroes propose to stop this from happening again (and again, and again and again and again)?

Here’s another alarming thought: what will be done with the children? There’s no way around the fact that the MLA, and therefore the PLF, included children[49]—and I don’t mean it in the tumblr sense of describing a sixteen-year-old as “a literal child,” though there would be some of those, too. No, I mean the grade-schoolers, the toddlers, the babies. Maybe some of them will have non-PLF family they could hypothetically go to, but as I have written about in the past, there’s a very real bias about orphans and other children separated from their parents in Japan, and even blood ties are not always enough to overcome that stigma. Alternative care is in a woefully sorry state as it is in Japan, and this would only be compounded for PLF kids—damned first for their criminal associations and again for being the children society doesn’t want.

However many thousands of them that may be.[50]

So here again, a question recurs. Where before it was, “How do you tell the guilty from the innocent?” here it’s, “How do you stop the societal backlash from ruining countless peoples’ lives both now and for decades into the future?” What kind of stigma will all these people—rank and file who come out of prison deradicalized and ready to rejoin society, children who were too young to understand why heroes took their parents away, ignorant family and friends who just lost loved ones to a massive government sweep, innocents swept up in the net and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit—going to be facing? How long, then, before that stigma sees them radicalized in turn?

You cannot sweep 115,000 people under the rug and not expect there to be a stain—and given the narrative themes of the rest of My Hero Academia thus far, it’s absurd to think that’s even an option.

Next time: how scrapping the ex-MLA portions of the PLF undermines MHA's narrative integrity.

-----------------------------------------------------

Footnotes (Part Three)

[26] And in the legal sense, murder in the second degree.

[27] For the monstrous callousness of his comments in that conversation, said guard is immediately murdered by karma All For One. I very much hope we ever get Shishikura’s opinion on this, because I’m pretty sure the guard was his dad.

[28] Who, in Chapter 35 of that series, leads a group of police firing rubber bullets at an active villain, emphasizing that the police are trained in non-lethal tactics, and any escalation from that is not to be taken lightly.

[29] Indeed, you could make a fair argument that that’s exactly why the manga included the Noumu to begin with, though the lower-tier ones wind up captured as often as not.

[30] Vigilantes, Chapter 74.

[31] This sidesteps the matter of “rescue heroes,” those who focus on disaster response and evacuation. Note, however, that this is not a categorization that pits those heroes against non-quirk-abusing civilians. Non-quirk-abusing civilians are criminals for police to deal with, not heroes of any stripe.

[32] This would be in keeping with real-world de-escalation tactics. So for e.g. the purse-snatcher in Chapter 1, where we’re told he didn’t use his quirk until he’d been backed into a corner, I would bet that Kamuy Woods or whoever confronted the thief didn’t start actually using their quirk on the man until he went into giant mode. That is anyway a kinder interpretation than noting that he was a heteromorph and would have been using his quirk automatically just by virtue of existing in public.

[33] After digging him out from under the stairway it had a teenager drop on top of him, I mean. Did he even have much of a chance to use Incite at the villa, do you think?

[34] Though given that literally every member of the MLA we’ve met is addressed solely by their code name, I don’t for a second believe he could have gotten real names out of everyone he talked to.

[35] And judges virtually always grant warrants. It’s that presumption of guilt thing again.

[36] But that panel of the normally taciturn Edgeshot shouting at a bunch of high schoolers not to let a single person escape is pretty damn telling too.

[37] 14% of the Japanese populace is under 14 years old, so that’s not too far off, though I’d be inclined to think, based on everything we know about them, that the MLA was having more kids than Japan at large, not fewer.

[38] This should have been Uraraka, by the way.

[39] An exaggeration, but only by a handful of tenths of a percentage point.

[40] Though until recently, it’s served as a great check on recidivism, clearly.

[41] You know, assuming that they weren't all arrested in the middle of their workday or cleaning house or going to university or what have you.

[42] Both are among the agencies that make up the Ministry of Justice. I’d be willing to bet that, in-universe, the Hero Public Safety Commission is also under the Ministry of Justice umbrella.

[43] The funds are then remitted to the National Treasury.

[44] Though one thing to note for our current context is that, even when those parties were dissolved, it did not automatically follow that any duly elected representatives were expelled from office. Unless there was legal reason to remove them, any elected officials were simply rendered “Independents” rather than being affiliated with a political party. The constitution stipulates that Diet members can only be expelled by a two-thirds majority vote, though in such circumstances, most politicians choose to step down from their positions before it comes to such drastic measures.

[45] A newspaper or other bulletin officially authorized by the government to publish public and legal notices—in Japan these days, it’s an online site/newsletter.

[46] And they’re often still controversial with progressive activists, as the invocation against Aum was even contemporaneously! Incidentally, Aum’s dissolution lasted for a mere two years before the government panel ultimately declined to make it permanent.

[47] And if you don’t think the HMP had someone watching the official Japanese government website, you’re clearly not taking them seriously.

[48] And possibly more besides; the dialogue in question trails off in a way that suggests that the obstruction charge is only the first in a list.

[49] Start at Yotsubashi Rikiya being inducted when he was still in schoolboy shorts and continue right on up through the people we see in school uniforms in various mass battle scenes involving the MLA rank and file.

[50] And it easily could be thousands. If, say, even 10% of the PLF are minors, that’d be well over 10,000 kids, and thus we’re right back to overcrowding problems, except this time they’re about Japan’s child services programs, and the last thing they need is a new group of kids that numbers a full third of the number of children already in their care in real-life Japan. Naturally, the number only climbs if you think Re-Destro wasn’t counting kids in his initial reckoning of the MLA’s membership.

#bnha analysis #bnha meta #paranormal liberation front #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha spoilers #my writing #plf arrests #stillness has salt

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soudabukedits · 3 years

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hey hey hey hey hey! i'm mod ibuki, n' welcome to my brand new edit blog, soudabukedits! i'm currently the only mod, buuuuut I'm currently lookin for a mod kazuichi (non negotiable sorry!), so with that said, mod applications are officially open!

ive got some rules, some tags, n' the google form link under the cut! <33

PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT OR APPLY IF...

... you identify as (a):

terf/swerf, transmed, radfem, pedo/map/nomap/pear, pro-shipper/anti-anti, nazi, fujoshi, trump supporter, anti-lgbtq+, yandere, exclusionist, super straight/gay/bi/etc, anti-vaxxer

... you support:

pro-shippers, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, yanderes, people who sexualize gay relationships (fujoshis/fudanshis), mspec lesbians/gays, endogenic systems, racism/racist people, abuse of any kind, the google form's p asswo rd is pop rocks, problematic creators (knowingly), autism speaks, the dre/am sm/p or any of its members, ninjamuffin99, omocat

... you:

knowingly erase canon lgbtq+ labels, ignore or deny canon queercoding, misgender trans/non-binary or trans-coded characters, don’t consume media critically, believe queer is a slur, are anti blm/acab or other racial justice movements

rules:

i'd prefer if no one over 21 applied, as i am a minor! you're free to ask for my age range through dms or off anon!

i'll be accepting one mod, who'll be mod kazuichi!

if you make it in, i'll contact you on discord asap!

i don’t know how long i'll keep the applications open? i know i won't keep them open for no longer than a week. if you want to be my fellow mod you should enter asap, just in case i close them earlier than i planned!

GOOGLE DRIVE LINK

could i get a promo? please and thank ya! <3

@twisted-lies @fairytalefragments @sweetheartedits @hexedits @lilypadedits @www-knot-com @1137 @multiedits @froggykinz @danganronpa-cafe @kaedxll @scftdoll + anyone else whod like to promo me! it's very very very appreciated!! /gen

#🎉 rockin' out | ibuki talks #reply icon by fairytalefragments #kin help #kin edits #kin requests #kin #kinnie #fictionkin #kin blog #promo post #kinning

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kittyreading · 3 years

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Manga Master List: Recommendations and My Personal Wish List

!!//PLEASE READ//!!

Below is every manga from my amazon wishlist I would recommend(as of February 11 2021) with a picture and a 3-5 sentence explanation of what the manga is about. Underneath will also be the number of volumes I have read, the number I own, and it’s status of ongoing or complete and how many volumes it has. This way you can decide for yourself if you think I have read enough of it to give an accurate recommendation.

This list only includes manga you can purchase (including digital purchases) from the wishlist. I decided that I would in fact include my personal amazon manga wishlist here and at the bottom for people to buy THEMSELVES a copy of any of these manga they would like. Keep in mind many of these won’t have volume 1 in the list but you should be able to get to the series page from the list. If a manga shows up on the amazon list that I did not include in this one that is because I have not read enough of them(or any of them) to recommend. Ok? Cool, enjoy the list!!

1. The Girl from the Other side is about a little girl living with a gentleman monster. It is a supernatural mystery with beautiful art.

Own: 0

Series: Ongoing at 9 volumes

2. Pumpkin Scissors is a military fantasy about a War Veteran named Randal Oland who joins the pumpkin scissors core to help with war relief and uncover the deep corruption of the government. It is similar in themes to FMA in the sense it appears to be based on a World War, and corruption of government but it more focused on the power of the noble houses in government. There is also a fun science element but it is not as in focus as in FMA. The two but are very very different overall tho. Only 5 volumes were distributed in physical English copies as the publishing company went bankrupt, all others are only available digitally. (I couldn’t get the manga vol. 1 cover to work so the picture above is a poster for the anime)

Own: 0

Read: around 10

Series: Ongoing at 23 volumes

3. Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun is a slice of life about a bunch of highschoolers. Nozaki is the mangaka of a popular Shoujo manga who uses his personal experiences with friends to create his monthly comic series. It is a fun gender stereotype reversal manga with a large cast of both male and female characters (one could be HC as genderfluid but she’s still canonically female at this time) The manga is one of the easiest to read as the panels are mostly in straight down rectangles so the pages are extremely easy to follow and is very funny.

Own: 1

Status: Ongoing at 12 volumes

4. Yu-Gi-Oh! is well known to be about the card game yu-gi-oh, using magic and myths to further the story, HOWEVER, Yu-gi-oh! is the “Season 0″ of the series it is much darker than to be expected and there is no card game. The Yu-gi-oh most are familiar with is Yu-gi-oh Duelist (just found this out myself) and is the Yu-gi-oh you probably already know. There is no overarching plot to this mini series it is just Yugi fucking shit up playing games and destroying some bullies. I have yet to read any of Duelist as of the creation of this post therefore I cannot recommend it :/

Own: 5 (1-3 & 6-7)

Status: Completed at 7 volumes

5. The Way of the House Husband is about a former yakuza who gets married and flips his script. He becomes a house husband for his working wife and carries on doing chores and errands while still looking and acting scary unintentionally and getting himself in trouble. It is a slice of life comedy with some adult jokes but is over all extremely funny and pleasant to read.

Own: 0

Status: Ongoing at 7 volumes

6. Hikaru no Go is about a highschool boy who finds a haunted Go board. He meets the ghost who once was a prolific Go player. Together they work to become a world class Go champion meeting new people along the way. This series was cut short due to legal issues with a real Go player and therefore will remain unfinished but the story that is there is golden. It is still one of the most popular manga in Japan.

Own: 0

Status: Complete at 23 Volumes

7. Zatch Bell! This manga is about a teenager named Kiyo who gets sent a young boy with amnesia named Zatch Bell who turns out to be an alien called a momodo. Now the two must battle other momodo in order to understand what happened to Zatch and to make Zatch the new king. Along the way they make many friends and save both the momodo and human worlds. This one is difficult because it is a classic that did not do well in America so the volumes are expensive and the series is unfinished in English. You can only buy 27 of the volumes in English and a few of them are almost impossible to find, however it is well worth the money if you can afford it and it is available online.

Own: 6 (1-5 & 13)

Status: Complete at 33 Volumes only 27 printed in English (you can finish series online)

8. Fullmetal Alchemist is a cult classic most have read it, watched the series, or heard of it at the very least. This is one of the most popular Manga of all time and for good reason. The manga is about 2 brothers Alphonse and Edward on a journey to return their bodies to normal after committing the taboo of human transmutation. The manga has themes of racism, government corruption and manipulation of the military. The versions on my wishlist are the special Fullmetal Editions so they will have a different price point and volume number than the regular volumes or the omnibuses’

Own: 12

Status: Complete at 27 Volumes

9. Princess Jellyfish is about a young woman who is sort of an outcast otaku living with 5 other otaku women. She has a deep love for jellyfish as they remind her of her late mother. She meets a beautiful woman who turns out to be a male college student and slowly comes out of her shell making new friends and growing with old ones as well. This manga is very sweet and I really don’t know what else to say haha.

Own: 0

Status: Complete at 17 volumes

10. !!!HUGE TW FOR EATING DISORDERS!!! In Clothes Called Fat is a, oneshot, non romanticizing story of an office woman trying to lose weight and developing several eating disorders in the process. She goes through hardships in relationships and bullying as well. It has a bittersweet ending and should be read with caution but it is beautifully done. Please do not read this if you are under the age 16 at the very youngest there are NSFW moments as well as just generally not being a topic for younger audiences.

Own: No

Read: Yes

Status: Completed one shot

11. My LOVE Story!! Is an adorable Slice of Life shojo about a highschooler named Takeo Gouda, his girlfriend Yamato, and his best friend and hear throb Suna. This series is rather refreshing as the relationship starts pretty much immediately, the best friend is very supportive, and it is focused on Takeo’s personality over looks as he is often compared in manga to a gorilla or bear. It is a generally heart warming story with some emotional side plots. The ending is sort of sudden but it’s really enjoyable.

Own: 6 (1-3,8,10-12)

Status: Completed at 13 Volumes

12. Soul Eater is pretty popular but if you don’t know what it is about it is about a Weapon named Soul and his Meister Maka. They attend a school that teaches them how to defeat people before they turn into Demons, saving the world in the process. Once a weapon eats 100 evil souls and a witches soul they can become the new death Scythe! That is the plot presented, and it of course goes off into a much more complicated storyline. It is super fun and engaging with a fascinating plot near the end.

Own: 5

Status: Completed at 25 Volumes

13. D. Gray-Man is a little complicated. Similarly to Soul Eater D. Gray-Man is a story based around defeating people turned demon and the saving of the world through an organization, however the plot gets very complicated very quickly. The art is some of the most interesting and beautifully fun art I’ve come across and the characters are (so far as I’ve read) all amazing. The story has a lot of christian influence and is one you have to really keep up with to understand but I recommend it regardless!

Own: 10

Status: Ongoing at 27 Volumes

14. One-Punch Man is also very popular and is about a man who becomes so strong he only needs to punch you once to completely annihilate you, and it greatly annoys him. This manga greatly touches on the themes of self worth as Saitama becomes a hero that no one seems to want. The fights are fun and engaging, tho at times can be difficult to read. The art is gorgeous, with some of the most heavily detailed work I have ever seen.

Own: 3

Status: Ongoing at 21 Volumes

15. The Boy and The Beast is the manga adaptation of the movie by the same name. This is a bittersweet story about a boy who finds a family in the land of the beasts and the repercussions of this intermixing. It is sweet and sad and there’s not much else to say, but that it is a beautifully crafted story.

Own: 1

Read: 1 (but I’ve seen the movie and read the light novel)

Status: Complete at 4 Volumes

16. MAR is not a manga I should be recommending as I genuinely don’t think I have read enough of the story to do so but I love it so much I’m going to anyway. MAR is a classic Isekai Shonen, a kid goes through a door into another world and has to fight a war to save it, there is a super fun magic system and some wonderful story building with genuinely enjoyable characters and battles. I am recommending this more based off the anime than the manga itself because it was one of my absolute favorites when I was younger, so take from that what you will! This manga has the same issue Zatch Bell does however, the series did not do amazingly so the volumes can be expensive!

Own: 3

Status: Complete at 15 Volumes

Thank you for your time haha! I hope you liked the list, here is my wishlist again and if you have any questions please let me know!! I will try to keep this master list updated as it and the wishlist will only continue to grow, but I make no promises for doing it often. Making this took me a very long time so I hope you like it!

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eretzyisrael · 3 years

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Poll of American Jews has Distressing Results

Most American Jews say they “support Israel.” But a recent poll casts serious doubt on this, or at least indicates that their idea of “support” is not what one might expect.

The poll was done by the Jewish Electorate Institute, described as a “group led by prominent Jewish Democrats,” and unsurprisingly some of the questions are clearly designed to elicit a desired result. For example,

Q.25 As you may know, the Trump Administration eliminated humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The Biden Administration has recently reversed Trump’s policy and has renewed humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Do you support or oppose Biden renewing this aid?

Given the large preference for Biden over Trump by poll respondents (when scored on a scale of 0-100, Biden had a mean grade of 67 vs. Trump’s 19), and considering that the question did not discuss the reasons for Trump’s action – the Taylor Force Act and the use of aid money to pay terrorists – but only related the issue to Biden and Trump, it was foreordained that the majority would favor resuming “humanitarian” aid.

The distribution of poll respondents by denomination closely mirrors the American Jewish population:

37% Reform 31% No particular denomination 17% Conservative 9% Orthodox 2% Reconstructionist 3% Other 1% Not sure

85% of them said that their religion was Judaism, and 100% self-identified as Jewish.

I am not especially interested in their responses to the questions about aid to Israel, the two-state solution, and so forth. These questions are too general and do not supply enough information to enable the respondent to make a real choice. We already know that most American Jews favor a “two-state solution,” but what if the question were “do you support a two-state solution in which terrorists fire rockets at Ben Gurion Airport from within their state, a mere 7 miles away?” This is not usually how it is asked.

I do want to know how they see Israel in relation to themselves. What does the Jewish state mean to Jews who live in America?

The first question connected to Israel listed various political issues and asked respondents to choose two of them as top priorities for the administration. Israel came out close to the bottom of the list, with only Iran and abortion below it. Unfortunately the question did not ask what the respondents’ personalpriorities were, only what they wanted the government to focus on. If I had answered the question, I too would have put Israel last. As Tevye said about the Tsar, the less attention paid to us the better.

Next, we got this: “How emotionally attached are you to Israel?” This question is too subjective. Who knows what each individual thinks it means? Do they visit Israel, have relatives here, donate to Israel-related charities? A better question would be “if Israel disappeared, would you be (a) desolated, (b) mildly unhappy, (c) unmoved, (d) mildly pleased, or (e), ecstatic. But they didn’t ask this. 29% said they were very attached, 33% somewhat attached, 25% not too attached, and 13% not at all attached. While I would like to know the answer, this really doesn’t help.

But some questions stand out, and the answers are not good. Only 9% agreed with the statement “Israel doesn’t have the right to exist,” and 67% said that the statement was antisemitic. But when asked if Israel is an apartheid state, 25% agreed. When asked if “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the U.S.,” 34% agreed. And – probably the most incredible of all – 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.”

It is shocking to me that one out of four American Jews thinks that Israel is an apartheid state and is committing genocide against the Palestinians.

Genocide! Do they have the slightest idea of what the word means? I suppose they don’t know that the number of Palestinians between the river and the sea has increased by more than 2,710,000, a factor of 2.5, since 1967, but still – where are the concentration camps, the smokestacks? Where are the killing fields? Surely, if there had been such mass murder, the New York Times would have (joyfully) reported it.

And apartheid. Actual apartheid, the separation of races that was practiced in South Africa until the early 1990s, is well-documented, and there are plenty of people still around who experienced it themselves. It was absolutely nothing like the treatment of Arabs by the state of Israel, either within the Green Line or in the territories. There are no racially-based laws, no system of classification by race, no separate beaches or drinking fountains (except for the ones on the Temple Mount, which only Arabs are permitted to use). Only complete ignorance of both history and the facts about Israel could allow someone to believe this.

These results are inconsistent with one another. After all, does a state that commits genocide and practices apartheid have a right to exist? I think most people would say no. Should I add that the proposed state of Palestine, which will not permit Jews to live in it and whose heroes have always been the ones who killed the most Jews, fills the bill for a state that doesn’t have the right to exist?

I am not surprised that more than one out of three American Jews believe that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is like the American race problem, because they have been told this over and over, by national figures like Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama, by many of their liberal rabbis, and of course by movements like BLM. I suppose they took the easy way out by choosing to analogize everything to their own experience rather than to actually think, but consider: Arabs were never slaves to Jews, the US is not surrounded by enemy states populated by blacks, blacks do not occupy Arizona and are not firing rockets from there into California, and … I could go on, but it should be obvious that it is not the same. Not even a little.

So despite the fact that this is technically a very bad poll, the results are still not encouraging. They are not good for anyone in Israel who thinks that American Jews might lobby for her in a pinch, and they are not good for the American Jews who appear to be prepared to believe the worst accusations imaginable about their own historic homeland.

Abu Yehuda

#American Jews

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thecreaturecodex · 4 years

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Great Old One, Chaugnar Faugn

Image © deviantArt user fed0t, accessed at his gallery here

[Commissioned by @monstersdownthepath. Chaugnar Faugn is a canonical Great Old One in Pathfinder from the Cthulhu Mythos, specifically the novella “The Horror From the Hills” by Frank Belknap Long. Although I’ve been familiar with good ol’ CF since I got a copy of Call of Cthulhu d20 for Christmas one year, I only just now read “The Horror From The Hills” in order to write this entry. I can see why the story hasn’t been reprinted a ton; it’s basically just “The Call of Cthulhu” with more action and more racism. Yes, more racism than Lovecraft. Let that sink in. Also, I think it’s hilarious how many times Long has his characters describe Chaugnar Faugn as unlike any other mythological entity, and completely unimaginable by mere human minds, when he’s clearly Eldritch Vampire Ganesha.]

Great Old One, Chaugnar Faugn CR 26 CE Aberration This creature is vaguely like a parody of an elephant-headed humanoid, but the resemblances to both elephants and humanoids are only superficial. Tentacles held together with webbing mirror ears, and its twin tusks are translucent and interwoven. Its trunk is impossibly long and ends in a lamprey-like maw.

Chaugnar Faugn, the Horror From the Hills, the Feeder CE male Great Old One of blood, patience and remote landscapes Domains Chaos, Death, Evil, War Subdomains Blood, Entropy, Murder, Tactics Favored Weapon Light pick Unholy Symbol An elephant’s head with a bloody trunk Worshipers evil elves, murderers, nosferatu, those seeking revenge Minions faceless stalkers, morlocks, hill giants

Chagnaur Faugn, the Feeder, was old when the planets were young. He is a being formed from the initial creation of matter in the universe, and has traveled the cosmos in search of blood to drink and death to deal. He is perhaps the first parasite, and is truly one of the greatest. His body and senses stretch into both the Ethereal and Shadow Planes, and he will prey on their denizens as readily as any Material creature. Chaugnar Faugn is capable of flying between worlds, but does so only on rare occasions. He has witnessed the birth and death of at least one biosphere in its totality, and wishes to compare that to other arcs of planetary development.

Chaugnar Faugn prefers swift and precise attacks to destructive rampages, despite his bulk and strength. He spends most of his life in the shape of a stone statue, animating only to drink blood or punish followers who betray his faith. If forced to actually fight, the Feeder tramples enemies, then uses his crystalline tusks (which swivel independently) and mighty claws to finish off opponents. He is gifted in magic, and often transforms his allies into monstrous beasts to fight on his behalf, or simply stops an enemy’s heart with power word: kill.

Chaugnar Faugn’s current appellation, The Horror from the Hills, stems from his preference for remote country. He seeks out dispossessed and marginalized groups and bullies his way into a place of honor in their pantheon, demanding blood sacrifice and murdering them if they do not comply. To mark his chosen, he inflicts a terrible curse on them, granting them animalistic features. The trunk and ears of an elephant are a favorite, as they resemble his own form. Chaugnar Faugn teaches patience, for he has lived for literal eons, and savors the suspense of a revenge drawn out. His worship is popular with long lived and endangered species, such as the nosferatu, and he teaches that if they cannot make more of themselves, they should at least be remembered for the terror they inflict.

Chaugnar Faugn CR 26 XP 2,457,600 CE Large aberration (great old one) Init +18; Senses darkvision 60 ft., hyperdimensional sight, Perception +38, scent, true seeing Aura cloak of chaos (DC 26), unspeakable (300 ft., Will DC 33) Defense AC 43, touch 31, flat-footed 42 (-1 size, +8 Dex, +12 natural, +10 insight, +4 deflection) hp 615 (30d8+480); fast healing 10 Fort +25, Ref +24, Will +31 Immune ability damage, ability drain, aging, cold, death effects, disease, energy drain, fire, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, and petrifaction; SR 37 Defensive Abilities hyperdimensional body, immortality, improved uncanny dodge Offense Speed 80 ft., swim 80 ft. Melee 2 gores +36 (2d8+15/19-20), 2 claws +36 (2d6+15), bite +36 (1d6+15 plus chew magic plus grab) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with bite) Special Attacks blood drain (2d4 Con), curse of Chaugnar Faugn, demanding dreams, insanity (DC 33), mythic (10/day, 1d12), subtle magic, trample (Ref DC 40, 4d6+22) Spell-like Abilities CL 26th, concentration +34 Constant—cloak of chaos (self only, DC 26), true seeing At will—darkness M, gaseous form M, greater command (DC 23), nightmare (DC 23), stone shape M, telekinesis (DC 23) M 3/day—greater dispel magic, horrid wilting (DC 26), quickened mass inflict pain (DC 24), polymorph any object (DC 26), empowered vampiric touch M 1/day—etherealness, shadow walk, power word: kill M, power word: stun M M = Chaugnar Faugn can use the mythic version of this SLA Statistics Str 40, Dex 27, Con 42, Int 26, Wis 30, Cha 27 Base Atk +22; CMB +38 (+40 bull rush, +42 sunder), CMD 60 (62 vs. bull rush, sunder) Feats Acrobatic Steps, Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Empower SLA (vampiric touch), Greater Sunder, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (gore), Improved Sunder, Lightning Reflexes, Nimble Moves, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (mass inflict pain), Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical Skills Bluff +33, Climb +36, Intimidate +38, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, geography, nature, religion, planes) +33, Knowledge (history) +36, Perception +38, Sense Motive +35, Spellcraft +36, Stealth +36, Swim +43 Languages Aklo, Aquan, Terran, Undercommon, telepathy 300 ft. SQ no breath, otherworldly insight, starflight, statue form Ecology Environment any Organization unique Treasure double standard Special Abilities Chew Magic (Su) A creature or object bitten by Chaugnar Faugn is subject to a targeted greater dispel magic effect (CL 26th). This effect first affects spells that protect against being grappled, such as freedom of movement, before any other spells. Curse of Chaugnar Faugn (Su) As a standard action, Chaugnar Faugn can cast its curse upon a creature within 120 feet. A creature targeted must succeed a DC 33 Will save to suffer a -6 penalty to an ability score of Chaugnar Faugn’s choice. A creature cursed in this manner has their facial features altered to resemble those of an animal. A creature that succeeds on this save is immune to the Curse of Chaugnar Faugn for the next 24 hours. Chagnaur Faugn can use this ability as a swift action against a creature it is grappling. This is a curse effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Demanding Dreams (Su) When Chaugnar Faugn targets a creature with its nightmare spell-like ability, regardless of whether it passes or fails the save, the creature must succeed a DC 33 Will save or be affected as per a demand spell. A creature that passes its save against the damage from the nightmare gains a +5 bonus on this saving throw. This is a mind-influencing compulsion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Hyperdimensional Body (Su) Chaugnar Faugn exists in multiple dimensions at once, granting it abilities similar to those of an incorporeal creature. It is immune to damage from non-magical weapons, and takes half damage from all corporeal sources except for force effects and ghost touch weapons. It can move through solid objects as if they were difficult terrain, except that it cannot end its movement in an object. This ability does not function if Chaugnar Faugn is subject to a dimensional anchor or similar effect. Hyperdimensional Sight (Su) Chaugnar Faugn can see into the Ethereal Plane and Shadow Plane at a distance of 60 feet. It can attack creatures on either of these planes normally, although such creatures are treated as having cover against his attacks. Immortality (Ex) If Chaugnar Faugn is slain, he dissolves into a noxious sludge, and incarnates in his statue form on a distant planet over the course of 100 years. He must remain in his statue form for an additional 1011 years before he can return to animation, but can still use his subtle magic in this forced hibernation. Starflight (Su) Chagnaur Faugn can survive in the void of outer space. It flies through space at an incredible speed. Although exact travel times vary, a trip within a single solar system should take 3d20 hours, while a trip beyond should take 3d20 days (or more, at the GM's discretion)—provided it knows the way to its destination. Statue Form (Su) As a standard action, Chaugnar Faugn can assume the form of a statue of Medium, Large or Huge size. He can use his senses normally in this form and communicate using telepathy, but can take no actions except for his subtle magic. He may resume his animate form as a move action. Subtle Magic (Su) Chaugnar Faugn does not detect as magical when in statue form. In addition, he can spend a use of mythic power to use one of its spell-like abilities or the Curse of Chaugnar Faugn while in statue form. If he does so, he cannot deliver a touch attack unless the creature is touching it. When it uses this ability, creatures that witness the spell must succeed an opposed Spellcraft check against Chaugnar Faugn to determine that he is the source of the spell-like ability. Unspeakable Presence (Su) Creatures that succumb to Chaugnar Faugn’s unspeakable presence find themselves literally falling apart. A creature that fails a DC 33 Will save gains vulnerability to bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage (determined randomly) for as long as it remains in the area of effect. The save DC is Charisma based.

#chaugnar faugn #cthulhu mythos #pathfinder 1e #great old one #commissions

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hobbitsetal · 4 years

Note

how do you share the gospel with people our age/young adults? saying "Jesus loves you and wants a relationship with you" is probably just going to make them laugh and roll their eyes. how in the world do you evangelize nowadays?

Honestly? You evangelize by addressing problems with theology and by being part of their lives.

Let’s talk about theology first. What are the problems young adults are grappling with? We face uncertainty in every aspect of our lives, we face global injustice in a variety of ways and places, we face systemic racism and hatred. What does the gospel offer? What does God offer?

For one thing, He wrote the history of the world before the world existed. What is uncertainty to a God Who predicted major world events centuries before they happened? What is uncertainty to a God Who knows humanity inside and out? The Bible depicts people, and the stories, commands, and poetry resonate as much today as when they were written.

He is a God of justice, and He is a God Who does not look on the outside. Over and over through the Bible, the Lord subverts human expectations and customs. Over and over, He fights for the marginalized, the oppressed, the shunned. The weak--the women, children, disabled--are His special concern, and He makes them our special concern.

That’s powerful. I cannot think of any other god that can claim to know humanity so intimately, so compassionately, so perfectly, and so justly. And He became one of us! He does not merely look down from on high, He joined us. He can say “yeah, I know what hunger feels like. I know loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, joy, sorrow. I have felt them Myself.”

The gospel is not “Jesus loves you.” The gospel is “Jesus is the rightful King of the universe, Who proved His immense worth and justice and mercy and love by living among us perfectly, dying sinlessly, and rising from the dead to reign at the right hand of the Father.

~~~

But how do you get to the point of discussing these problems? And what about the personal problems: the messy family dynamics, the personal insecurities, the ups and downs of life?

Relationships.

Movie nights, dinners, hiking trips, grabbing groceries for each other. Life. When you make people part of your life, they make you part of theirs. When you’re (forgive the buzzword) real with each other, you have opportunities that surface-level street preaching doesn’t afford.

I’m not knocking street preaching at all! It can be a wonderful conversation starter! But discipleship and gospel living is a day in and day out thing.

This idea isn’t mine. I picked it up from Rosaria Butterfield’s “The Gospel Comes with a House Key,” in which she advocates sharing life with neighbors as the most practical way to live out the gospel. I can attest personally to the worth of this mindset.

My neighbor is gay. She knows we believe that’s a sin, she accepts our point of view, yet we’re friends. She barges into my apartment when she wants chocolate, we walk her dogs for her, she takes me out for coffee and bookshop dates...and she talks about philosophical problems and spiritual questions with me and my husband. We have so many opportunities to talk about the practical implications of the gospel with her because we’re friends. I know about the woman she loves; she spent last Christmas with my family.

I don’t know if she’ll be saved. I’m praying she will. But that’s between her and God. In the meantime, I’m evangelizing every time I say, “Hey, come over for dinner.”

~~~

While 1 Peter 3 is talking overall about how to conduct ourselves under persecution, I think verse 15 is applicable to life overall: “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect...”

Why do I love my neighbor? Why am I invested in BLM and the state of the world? Why am I still friends with my sister’s ex? Because Christ died for me. Because Christ is the King of the Universe and He commands me to live with love.

Because God is love, and I am the child of God.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and body, and...love your neighbor as yourself.”

Be friends. Speak truth. Cry with them, laugh with them, watch movies with them. And when you don’t have an answer, say that, and then study up on their questions. Be invested.

Christ lived 33 years answering questions and sharing life. I think it’s a pretty good evangelistic model.

#theology #practical theology #Christianity #faith #the gospel

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and-the-world-is-quiet-here · 4 years

Text

Live 2020 debate commentary from a salty, disabled, and VERY pissed gen Z

Yall he just said he’s immune

My dad just left the room

Bitch are u saying Johnson and Johnson is going to make the vaccine?

sir that’s the diaper company…..smh

Biden just said its going to be a dark winter

#winter is coming

“virus.....that came from china” -trump 2020

“were learning to live with it”-trump 2020

apparently “Biden lives in his basement”-your president 2020

totally accurate.....obviously

ohhhh biden just said were learning to die with it

trump interrupted biden

Mam I thought you said you were muting them?

biden laugh count at 3

he all about the once percent till its the dead ones

trump interrupting at 3...nvm its now 4

this debate is making my dog sad

interrupting now at 5 for trump

trump saying his young sons illness just “went away”

bitch he’s may age and no it did not just “go away”

he was in quarantine for two weeks

apparently nyc is a ghost town

its not a ghost town trump I live right next to it

loudest neighbors ever

trump don’t call him Anthony

his name is DOCTOR Fauci

treat him with the respect he deserves

Biden looks so sad

nvm he legit looks like the joker right now

HALFWAY MARKKK

why is this at 9?

sir its a school night

I need time to scroll through my feed for hours before collapsing

Biden don’t use the word sovereignty

trump doesn't know what it means

thats discrimination against trumps

ohhh hes attacking hunter (biden) again

so he has a wee drug problem?

at this point everyone got one!

your the one making lewd comments about your infant daughter on national tv

(look it up he talks about his 6 month old daughters legs but and breasts)

get him big b!!

h876689908776- my dog 2020

he wants to express his disappointment

the light boxs is stealing his mother attention

ohh hes being rude to the moderator again

u a strong independent Indian woman get him girll!

mute his mike

prty plz

I am dissapionted in you

he’s saying he’s not allowed to release his taxs

(that is a proven lie)

“i was put through a phony witch hunt”- you'll never guess 2020

hes going after his BROTHER now

how is this allowed?

who decided trumps strategy would be to accuse his opponent of his own crimes?

look at the insults guys its a crystal ball

stay ahead of the scandal's

WILL YOU LEAVE HIS SON ALONE PLEASE

THESE ARE HIS CHILDREN LEAVE THEM ALONE

“i was a business man doing business”-trump 2020

no sir you were another rich white guy taking advantage of tax brakes and cheap foreign labor in asia

#american jobs as long as i don’t have to pay minimum wage

#you know like a DECENT FUCKING PERSON

Trump interrupted again

I lost count a while ago

Biden is staring into my soul

oh Biden just played the middle class childhood card

I haven't heard a single mute so far?

trump just said his bromance with kim jung un saved america from nuclear war

dont through my boy Obama under the bus

and another interruption

my big bro just screamed “MUTE BUTTON MUTE BUTTON MUTE BUTTON”

honestly same

10 more min guys

hang in there

OHHH trump just got MUTEDDDDDD

Biden is now on legitimate policy

ahhh hes proud of his plan

annd trump just interrupted

trump just kissed up to the moderator

trump just said biden’s more liberal than bernie

ohhh

biden just said trump dosent know who hes running against

hes like “this is joe biden”

like I know bro but slick burn anyway

ohhh they muted trump again!!!!

perfect opportunity to mute missed

trump just blamed healthcare issues on nancy peloski

biden says the the republicans wont pass it

(btw hes actualy right)

2 mins left

and trump is speaking through it

1 min left

omg what a waste of air

I really want him to test his “immunity”

preferably during a harsh winter

ITS TEN GUYSSS

there running over

they still haven't covered immigration

shit

I have just learned there is 30 min left

I think I would rather kill myself than watch the rest of this

I’m seriously have a sensory overload right now

I’m doing this for u

“children are brought here by coyotes”-presedentail cown 2020

what a wack ass sentence

hes like ohIi haven't been putting kids in cages

and then just went but I didn't build them they were built in 2014

(contradiction much)

“who built the cages”

yes it was Obama but guess what

THEY WERNT BUILT FOR KIDS

there ment to house animals, evidence, and adult prisoners in emergency situations

THEY WERNT MENT FOR 3 YEAR OLDS

Biden was just like “well no actually kids come with PARENTS”

(kids hardly ever come over with out parents)

and then he was like and also WHO LOST TRACK OF OVER 1,000 PARENTS

(thats 500+ new orphans at the least)

hes saying only the illegal immigrants with the lowest IQs come back after being deported

we said the same thing in december about you but ya’know

my mum was like “anyone eating chocolate” and I was like “im snaking on this ignorance” and she was like “dont do that you'll get indigestion”

“no one has done more for the black community then Donald trump except for maybe Abraham Lincoln”

oh yeah Biden just brought up how trump publicly campaigned for the execution of the central park 5

WHO WERE CHILDREN

AND OH YEAH THEY WERE COMPLETELY INNOCENT

trump just yelled at Biden, got muted, and just yelled louder

trump just said he cant see the audience but hes the least racist person in the room

“Abraham lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents in american history”- biden 2020

biden just went “oh god”

he just said that he used to not support the blm movement because they chanted rude things about police officers

I would like to reiterate that “pigs in a blanket” has never been chanted in a protest or been a prominent statement in the blm movement nor “fry em like bacon” so what trump is saying is factually incorrect

unless hes on some sort of far right conservative twitter feed were he came across a video of some drunk white college kids chanting it

but you know what ever fits you narrative

plus I would be pretty pissed if I kept getting shot at for no reason so....

Biden making more logical decisions

trump was like why have you never done all this stuff when you were vice president

“we had a republican congress” -biden 2020

we have the cleanest air

we have the cleanest crystal clear water

sir, i know you've been to mexico

don’t lie

the waters gorges down there

and not owned by your smug ass

trump just called china filthy

so you know....

*whispers* racism

ok 5 min left

for real this time

trump just went “aoc plus 3: and then hes like she knows nothing about the climate

ummm.... you dont even believe in climate change

bidens like “are....is...is is”

good for you

correcting your grammar

trump just said “the wind kills all the birds” out of the godamn blue

(he means wind mills and its untrue)

“Whats the next question baba”

“the final question is leadership which he doesnt have”- baba 2020

I feel bad for anybody watching this on the toilet

bidens starring into your soul

he knows what your doing

there officially overtime

its 10 33

they haven't even done the last section yet

btw ITS A SCHOOL NIGHT

why do they host these so late

I should be pretending to be asleep right now

this is generational discrimination

plus trumps supporters are so old there asleep by now

ohhhh its over

1036 final time

okay so thoughts....I generally dont like the party system i think its ridiculous the system was not designed for it, and its now more about loyalty then the actual candidates. I also am really hesitant to put another strait white male in the oval office, especially one thats from “the lucky few” I.E. the smallest voting generation in the country and also the one that already holds the most positions. That being said, at this point its really anyone but trump and I think bidens got the experience to turn things around.

I AM IN SCHOOL I CANNOT VOTE. I am relying on all my older friends, followers, neighbors, and community members. To make an educated decision that wont further degrade the once hopeful future my generation awaits. Please if you can vote VOTE the kids are relying on you!

P.S. sorry i wasn't able to edit this earlier i struggle alot with spelling and didnt have the time to edit this because I HAD TO GO TO BED AND THEN GO TO SCHOOL. Why am I more politically active then people twice my age you might ask? Well, thats because adults are lazy and need to get of their gd asses and VOTE. So kids dont have to do the legwork for them.

I have said my peace now, have a wonderful day!

#2020 #election #covid #trump #biden #debate #byedon #flyden 2020

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3aris · 4 years

Text

“nothing will work unless you do” - Maya Angelou

BLACK LIVES MATTER

WE KNOW ALL LIVES MATTER

BUT RIGHT NOW BLACK LIVES ARE THE ONES IN DANGER!

RACISM:

a complex system of beliefs and institutions that elevates whites at the expense of non-whites.

we all exist in and benefit from this system, whether we notice it or not.

WHITE PEOPLE CANNOT EXPERIENCE RACISM!

- discrimination is not racism

- our society prioritizes and caters to the experiences and benefits of white people.

- white people hold the power in society. the ones in power cannot be the victims

* IT’S A PRIVILEGE TO EDUCATE YOURSELF ON RACISM INSTEAD OF EXPERIENCING IT *

HOW THE F*CK DOES RACISM STILL EXIST? [@cicelyblaincolsulting]

1. Racism Is Upheld By:

- Systems (media, education, law, healthcare...)

- History (our society is informed by centuries-old habit, biases, & disparities)

- Privilege (difficult to notice, address, and sacrifice. as long as one group benefits from the oppression of another, racism will still exist)

- Micro-Aggressions (everyday slights, comments, & actions uphold racist power structures)

2.The Formation Of Anti-Blackness

- Capitalism (Black bodies have been used as the means of production (worker labor, tools, machinery) to create wealth for Europeans.)

- Slavery (Black people were stripped of autonomy, citizenship, rights, and treated as objects for over 300 years)

- Colonialism (the land we occupy was stolen from indigineous peoples and continues to be pillaged for raw material, natural resources, and human capital for white gain first and foremost.

3. EVEN THE SMALLEST ACTS OF RACISM UPHOLD DOMINANT POWER STRUCTURES

4. Racism Is An Iceberg

- Tip / Visible Part (KKK, neo-nazis, police brutality, racial slurs, hate crimes)

- Majority / Hidden Part (all lives matter, your English is so good, you’re so pretty for a Black girl, what about Black on Black crime, can I touch your hair, where are you really from?)

ANTI-RACISM:

the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, policies, practices, and attitudes in order to redistribute and share power. [NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity]

WHITE PRIVILEGE:

white privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard, it means that the color of your skin isn’t one of the things making it harder

WHAT’S WRONG WITH POLICE [@leftnortheast]

1. Origins of Police in America

- slave patrols of armed white men to enforce slavery & chase down runaway slaves

- after slavery, these same patrols continued to enforce segregation & reinforce violence against Black ppl perpetrated by the KKK

- during the 19th century, the ultra-rich business owners relied on police to stop workers and immigrants from organizing labor unions

- LA’s “thin blue line” enforced segregation in the 1950s. look up “Black Wall Street”

- HISTORICALLY THE MAIN FUNCTION OF THE POLICE IS TO PROTECT WEALTH & ASSETS BY PRESERVING INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

2. Police Today

- when police commit crimes, the investigations are performed by the police themselves (union officials & internal affairs departments)

- only 33% of investigations end in police being convicted, compared to 68% in general pop.

- at least 40% of police families have experienced domestic violence, compared to 10% in the general population

3. ACAB: What It Means

- all cops are bastards

- it does NOT mean that individual cops are incapable of doing good things, but that the institution of policing is harmful and beyond saving

- the laws that “good” cops enforce work to uphold a harmful status quo that keeps working class and POC socially disadvantaged. therefore, there are no “good” cops

- EX: the three other officers who stood and watched Derek Chauvin kill George Floyd. they may be “good” because they didn’t kill Floyd, but they did nothing to prevent Chauvin from doing so.

THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF CALLING THE COPS [@freedomtothrive]

1. Don’t Feel Obligated To Defend Property

- is someone being actively hurt or endangered by property “theft” or damage?

- if “no,” let it be

2. If Something Of Yours Is Stolen...

- consider going to the police station instead of bringing cops into your community, you may be inadvertently putting someone art risk by calling the cops

3. If You See Someone Exhibiting “Odd” Behavior...

- don’t assume they are intoxicated

- ask if they are ok, if they have a medical condition, and if they need help

4. If You See Someone Pulled Over With Car Trouble...

- stop & ask if they need help or if you can call a tow truck for them

- calling police may result in unnecessary ticketing, target undocumented ppl, etc.

5. Keep A Contact List Of Community Resources

- EX: suicide hotlines, mental health assistance, etc.

- ppl with mental illnesses are 16x more likely to be killed by police

6. Check Your Impulse To Call The Police On “Suspicious” People

- is their race, gender, ethnicity, class, or housing situation influencing your action?

- calling the cops on such people can be death sentences (EX: Trayvon Martin)

HOW WILL WE STAY SAFE WITHOUT POLICE? [@mpd_150] [@wretched_flowers_]

1. Community Members

- mental health service providers, social workers, victim/survivor advocates, religious leaders, neighbors & friends need to look out for one another

- not armed strangers with guns who likely don’t live in the communities they patrol (police)

- society expects police to do too much: violent crimes, traffic stops, chasing loose dogs, etc.

2. What About Violence?

- crime isn’t random, it happens because ppl are unable to meet their needs EX: money, food, rent, etc.

- this problem can be solved with an emphasis on jobs, education, community centers, mental health resources.

- cops don’t prevent violence, they invite it through constant violent disruption of our communities

3. It’s Not Impossible

- look at the abolition of slavery, the 40hr work week, etc. those were accomplished through gradual progress

- redirect funds away from the police department toward those community-based alternatives listed above. LOOK UP HOW MUCH YOUR CITY / STATE SPENDS ON POLICING.

14 WAYS WHITE PPL CAN MAKE LIFE LESS FRUSTRATING FOR p.o.c. [@privtoprog]

1. trust / listen to POC assessment of a situation

2. don’t assume all POC have same views

3. don’t guess / assume ppl’s race

4. read & share articles relating to daily POC experiences

5. just because you have a POC friend / relative / partner doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. if anything, it means you should be more critical of your actions / words & how they affect those around you

6. don’t play devil’s advocate on race conversations. JUST. LISTEN.

7. understand that America has what it has because it stole land from indigenous people and stole people from Africa to build America

8. care about race on the other 364 days that aren’t MLK Day

9. don’t assume you know what it’s like to experience racism. you don’t & can’t. that’s the point.

10. nothing in your life has been untouched by your whiteness. everything you have would have been harder to come by if you had not been born white.

11. don’t get defensive when someone calls you out on racism, be grateful. it’s a learning moment.

12. move past white guilt. guilt it’s unproductive. just BE BETTER.

13. fighting racism isn’t about you. it’s about liberating POC from a racist world / system.

14. being an ALLY is a verb, not a noun. you can’t be an ally just because you say you are. actions are louder than words.

WHAT WHITE PPL CAN DO OVER TIME [@prettydecent]

1. Research & Learn In Public

- identify, name, & challenge the norms, patterns, traditions, structures,and institutions that keep racism & white supremacy in place

- TALK TO & EDUCATE OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. it’s YOUR job, not POC, to teach white ppl how to fight racism

- let people you care about know this is something you care about

2. Open Your Eyes To Anti-Blackness

- there are no race-neutral spaces, “colorblindness” does not exist.

- Anti-Blackness is the way in which Black ppl have been targeted & stripped of their humanity

- pay attention to CODED LANGUAGE. what do we mean by “good” neighborhoods & “good” schools?

- who starts trends? who gets credit for them? EX: rock & roll

3. Pay Attention To Your White Experience

- we will never full understand Black ppl’s experiences

- look at how your whiteness has impacted your life: encounters with police, airport security? job interviews?

- what are you “good at” and how might your race have affected that?

- white experiences are the social “default,” EX: “Is The Country Ready For Its First White President?”

4. Speak Up & Argue With White People

- silence is a privilege & acts in directly upholding the system of white supremacy

- look at how movies, TV, and other media treats Black and POC, and call it out when you see it.

- hold other white ppl accountable, THERE IS NO GROWTH WITHOUT DISCOMFORT. we make mistakes but that does not mean we can’t learn & grow from them.

HOW TO TALK TO YOUR FAMILY ABOUT RACISM [@jenerous]

1. Intent & Impact

- white ppl say that we don’t INTEND to be racist.

- intent doesn’t matter if the IMPACT of our actions harms someone and/or upholds a racist system

2. Watch Your Tone

- we don’t get to tell Black ppl how to talk about their own oppression (“tone policing”)

- when we talk to other white ppl about race, we need to speak in a way that best conveys the information, feelings aside

3. Tell Stories Of Your Own Privilege

- tell your family members a specific way your white privilege has protected you

- this is also a great opportunity for you to reflect on & better understand your own privilege

- WE LEARN BY TEACHING

4. Share Some Of Your Own F*ck Ups

- admitting you’ve been wrong before helps normalize personal growth

- makes it easier for your family to reflect on their own failures & move on

- vulnerability is strength

5. Make It Okay To Ask Questions

- ask your family if they have questions about racism

- this may bring up stuff you don’t know either, a great opportunity to learn together!

6. Keep Asking “Why Do You Think That Is?”

- find a race-related statistic that you both agree on (EX: “Black ppl are jailed for weed more than white ppl are”)

- ask your family member why they think that statistic is true until there’s no answer that makes sense besides “racism”

7. Plant A Seed Of Doubt

- unlearning a racist system means flipping everything we know on its head.

- that requires small steps, such as getting your family members to question their existing logic around ONE topic (Black hair, cultural appropriation, affirmative action, etc.)

- when they say “hmm... i never thought about that,” you’re making progress!

8. Commit To The Idea That It Is Possible To Change Someone’s Mind

- your own anti-racism journey is proof!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF [@is_siigii]

1. Who taught you about race & culture?

2. What can you do to support POC in your community?

3. What are you committed to doing outside of social media to fight racism?

4. How do you behave when you are confronted with racist behavior?

5. What do you want to learn more about?

6. What information could you teach people?

7. In what ways have you ignored this behavior in the past?

8. Why is it important for everyone to work toward ending this injustice?

9. How can you use anti-racist knowledge to change & progress?

10. Do you owe anyone an apology?

11. How do you handle conflicts?

#black lives matter #anti-racism #anti-racist #defundthepolice #defund the police

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basicsofislam · 5 years

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ISLAM 101: The Basic Concepts of Islam: Part 6

The Concept of the Universe

In the foreword, we briefly discussed the position of the Muslims and the future of Islam in Western Hemisphere. In this part, we shall discuss the position of man in the contemporary world, the general human situation, and the Islamic concept of the universe or world view. This will reaffirm the concepts that have already been discussed, add some new ideas, and tie together the various dimensions of the subject in a summary recapitulatory fashion. The present human situation is alarming, to say the least. It demands concern and active response on the part of all people of good will and God – mindedness. But this does not, and should not, lead to despair or resignation. The spirit of hope is, and has always been, an integral part of Islam (see, e. g., Quran 12:87; 65:3) The problems and crises of modern times are not entirely unique or peculiar. It is true that they are difficult, complex, and agonizing. Perhaps this is even more so now than ever before. But the difference, however, between this age and those of yester centuries is basically a difference of degree rather than of kind. The ever-increasing complexity of our contemporary predicaments may be largely due to a similar, proportionate rise in our expectations and capacities. For many centuries and in numerous regions of the globe, the chief source of the most difficult crises has essentially been a kind of inflexible, exclusive, and intolerant attitude toward the unfamiliar, the different, and the foreign. This orientation fostered racism, elitism, bigotry, prejudice, and a whole host of other equally distasteful attitudes. Few people can really deny that humanity is facing an unusual crisis. This present human crisis seems to emanate from a serious imbalance between our external, outward, material explorations and our internal, inward, moral gropings. Nothing is simpler than calling for the maintenance of equilibrium, advocating a middle range, or crusading for the golden means. Yet nothing has been harder to attain. In the past, utterances such as man cannot live by bread alone were sometimes so distorted as to connote disregard for man’s material welfare. Similarly, trust in God has been misunderstood; it is often taken to mean helpless fatalism or categorical denial of human free will and self-realization. An overemphasis on spirituality and resignation is bound to give rise to a counter emphasis on materialism, rationalism, free will, and so on. Stressed beyond certain limits, spirituality may become superstition and confusion. Likewise, counter stress may turn materialism into laxity, free will into libertinism, and rationalism into sheer vanity. The intellectual history of the last few centuries demonstrates these tendencies only too well. Over the years of recent decades, the spiritual scale tipped up and down. In the sixties, and now in the seventies, the news-making events are those of the unsurpassed, unprecedented, outer space explorations. Equally sensational are the unprecedented explorations in the inward, internal realms of being, however faddish, cultic, or neurotic they may seem to be. The rise of these two unprecedented and unbalanced types of exploration is exceptionally alarming. The reason probably lies in the fact that the two types do not seem to relate to each other, let alone converge. There is no apparent reciprocity, mutual reinforcement, or cross-fertilization. Besides, their precarious, unbalanced existence is a constant threat to the majority of people. It may very well drive them into ambivalence and confusion which may, in turn, intensify the problems of society and harden the lot of modern men. But such a precarious course can be changed if the outward scientific explorations and the inward moral gropings are somehow reconciled. Man does not live by bread alone. That is true enough. But neither does he live by prayers only. He is both a political or materialistic animal and a religious explorer of the holy. As already mentioned, the contemporary world is clearly baffled by numerous problems. But it is equally baffled by the conflicting diagnoses and prescriptions to cope with these problems. Some people sing along with the popular lyric, what the world needs now is love etc. Some call for a human rebirth. Others turn to Marxism, Humanism, Satanism, or Scientism as the ultimate solution. Still, more are awaiting the arrival of some future Savior. Yet this long list does not even include the indifferent, the hopeless, and the apathetic who may, in fact, outnumber the optimist clubs combined. But it seems that the greatest need today is the pressing need for "understanding." What man needs most of all is to understand himself and his nature, his potentials and limitations, his place in the universe and relationships with its elements. The question now is how can Islam help man to understand himself, unclog his mind, and clear his blurred vision? To try an answer to this question, it will be necessary to keep in mind the basic concepts of Islam which have been discussed and to elaborate further some elements of its value system. This analysis will hopefully show how they may relate to modern man in his contemporary predicament, and how they may help him to find his way through. The principle of moderation is most characteristic of Islam. It is probably best expressed in the way Islam views human nature, the meaning of life, and the idea of God. Islam does not subscribe to the one-sided humanistic philosophy, which almost deifies man and recognizes nothing beyond. Neither does Islam endorse the equally one-sided verdict that human nature is inherently vicious, wicked, or sinful, Islam rejects the idea that life is nasty, brutal, short, and miserable. But it equally rejects the idea that life is an end in itself, pleasurable, and carefree. Islam does give life a positive meaning, a purpose. It would devalue life on earth only relative to the Hereafter. It is not concerned exclusively with the here and now, the instant hedonism, and the immediate pleasures. Nor does it completely bypass the here and now in pursuit of a future paradise in a hereafter. It addresses itself to both the human condition here on earth and the human destiny in the Hereafter. Such concern is, of course, proportionate; it values each phase of existence according to its relative effect on the general well-being of man (Quran 7:33; 17:18-21; 28:77; 57:20-21). In the Quran, there is a passage (2: 27-39) which is typical of so many others. This passage contains some of the fundamental principles of Islam and represents the foundations of the world view of Islam. Outstanding among these principles are the following: 1. The world is a becoming entity, created by the will of a Designer and sustained by Him for meaningful purposes. Historical currents take place in accordance with His will and follow established laws. They are not directed by blind chance, nor are they random and disorderly incidents.

2. Man also is created by God and is commissioned to be Gods viceroy on earth. He is so chosen to cultivate the land and enrich life with knowledge, virtue, purpose, and meaning. And to achieve this goal, everything in the earth and the heavens are created for him and is made subservient to him. Life on this planet is not a prison for man; his coming into the world was not an arbitrary punishment for previously committed sins. Nor was he expelled from another world and cast out into this one. His existence was no mere chance or undesigned occurrence.

3. Knowledge is the unique faculty of man and is an integral part of his personality and his being. It is the knowledge that qualifies a man to be the viceroy of his Creator and entitles him to command the respect and allegiance even of the angels of God.

4. The first phase of life on earth began not in sin or rebellion against the Creator. The Fall from the Garden of Eden and what followed thereafter – the remorse of Adam and Eve, their repentance, God’s forgiveness of and compassion for them, the enmity between man and Satan – all this was no surprise to the Creator. Nor was it an accident in the course of events. It was too meaningful to be accidental. Rather, it seems to have been designed to discipline the first man, to give him an actual experience of fall and rise, moral defeat and triumph, straying from and reconciliation with the Creator. In this way, man would become better prepared for life and more enlightened to face its uncertainties and trying moments.

5. Eve was not the weaker party of the first human couple. She neither tempted Adam to eat of the forbidden tree nor was she alone responsible for the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Both Adam and Eve were equally tempted and equally responsible; both were remorseful, repented, and were blessed with the forgiveness and compassion of God. This is significant as it liberates Eve from the curse that followed her and her sex throughout the ages, and acquits her of the charge that she alone bears all or most of the responsibility for the Fall. Furthermore, it declares in no uncertain terms that the belief in the moral inferiority of women is unfounded and the double standard is totally unjustifiable. Here, as elsewhere, the Quran makes it very clear that both man and women are equally capable of virtue and weakness, equally sensitive, and equally meritorious.

6. Man is a free agent endowed with a free will. This is the essence of his humanity and the basis of his responsibility to his Creator. Without man’s relative free will life would be meaningless and Gods covenant with man would be in vain. Without human free will, God would be defeating His own purpose and man would be completely incapable of bearing any responsibility. This, of course, is unthinkable.

7. Life emanates from God. It is neither eternal nor an end in itself, but a transitional phase, after which all shall return to the Creator.

8. Man is a responsible agent. But responsibility for sin is borne by the actual offender alone. Sin is not hereditary, transferable, or communal in nature. Every individual is responsible for his own deeds. And while man is susceptible to corruption, he is also capable of redemption and reform. This does not mean that Islam prefers the individual to the group. Individualism means little or nothing when severed from social context. What it means is that the individual has different sets of roles to play. He must play them in such a way as to guard his moral integrity, preserve his identity, observe the rights of God, and fulfill his social obligations.

9. Man is a dignified honorable being. His dignity derives from the fact that he is infused with the spirit of his Creator. What is more important is that such dignity is not confined to any special race, color, or class of people. It is the natural right of man, every man, the most honorable being on earth.

10. The passage, finally, points to the deep-seated roots of the Oneness of God and the unity of mankind. It shows, further, that man’s highest virtues are piety and knowledge, that when such knowledge is acquired and invested according to the divine guidance, man’s blissful destiny will be assured and his life will be serene.

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yobaba30 · 5 years

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~ Tim Wise

1/ If the Dems blow this election it will not be because they were "too far left on policy" or because they "weren't left enough." It will have little to do with policy at all. They are making a mistake caused by traditional consultant theory that does not apply here...

2/ And by listening to influential pundits in liberal media who also don't get the unique nature of Trumpism, relative to normal political movements & campaigns...this election is NOT going to be won by talking about all your "great plans" for health care, jobs, education, etc..

3/ And the reasons are several...Let me begin by saying that I have experience confronting the kind of phenomenon we see in Trumpism, and far more than most. Any of us who were involved in the fight against David Duke in LA in 90/91 know what this is and how it must be fought...

4/ So before explaining what the Dems are doing wrong right now, a little history...In 1990, white supremacist David Duke ran for U.S. Senate in LA, and in 1991 for Governor. He lost both times but both times he won the majority of the white vote (60 and 55% respectively)...

5/ I was one of the staffers of the main anti-Duke PAC at the time & ultimately became Assistant Director. In 90, even though our Director Lance Hill, myself & a few of our founders wanted to focus on Duke's bigotry, ties to extremists and appeals to white racial resentment...

6/ ...after all, that WAS the issue--it was a moral struggle against racism--we had mainstream Democratic consultants who warned us against focusing too much on it. They said that "played into Duke's hands" and allowed him to set the agenda....

7/ So sure, we could discuss his ties to Nazis & such, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of his contemporary racist appeals, per se, bc "lots of voters agree" with those appeals...they even encouraged us to talk about utterly superfluous shit like Duke paying his taxes late..

8/ Or Duke avoiding service in Vietnam, or Duke writing a sex manual under a female pseudonym (yeah he did that)...although Lance held firm that we needed to talk mostly about racism, we did end up talking about some of that other stuff too, sadly...

9/ I say "sadly" because doing that normalized Duke as a regular candidate. Attacking his generic character or bill paying habits (or even discussing his inadequate plans for job creation, etc) treated him like a normal candidate. But he was/is a NAZI...

10/ And none of his voters were voting 4 him bc of jobs, or tax policy or support for term limits, etc. And none were going to turn on him over late tax payments, Vietnam, etc. Indeed throwing that stuff out there & downplaying the elephant in the room (racism) seemed desperate..

11/ It allowed people to say "well if he's really this racist, white supremacist, why are they talking about all this other stuff?" It actually undermined our ability to paint him as the extremist he was/is. And as a result, the threat he posed was not clear enough to voters...

12/ And this didn't just allow him to get votes he might not have gotten otherwise; it also depressed turnout among people who almost certainly disliked him but didn't think he could win or would be all that big a deal if he did. In fact I recall convos with "liberals"...

13/ ...Who said they weren't going 2 vote bc after all Duke's Dem opponent was just a shill for the oil and gas industry, and that was just as bad, blah blah fucking blah...because some lefties can't tell the difference between corporatist assholes and actual literal Nazis...

14/ But we bore some responsibility for that because we got suckered into playing this conventional game and "not playing into his narrative." Anyway, Duke gets 60% of the vote, black and white liberal turnout is lower than it should have been and Duke gets 44% of vote...

15/ In the Governor's race we dispensed w/ all that bullshit. We talked about Duke's ongoing Nazism and the moral/practical evil of his racist appeals. We discussed how that moral evil would have real world consequences (driving tourists and business away, rightly so, from LA)..

16/ Because it was wrong, and it was not who we wanted to be, and it was not who were were. We were better than that and needed to show the rest of the country that...

17/ Now, did this flip any of Duke's 1990 voters? Nah, not really. Indeed he got 65k MORE votes in the Governor's race than the Senate race. But it was never about flipping them. We knew that would be almost impossible...

18/ To flip Duke voters would require that they accept the fact that they had previously voted for a monster, and people are loath to do that. Our goal was not to flip them, but to DRIVE UP TURNOUT among the good folks, many of whom stayed home in 90...

19/ And that is what happened. The concerted effort of the anti-Duke forces (not just us), challenging Duke's "politics of prejudice," and making the election about what kind of state we wanted to be, drove turnout through the roof...

20/ 28,000+ registered on one day alone, between the initial election and runoff (which Duke made bc of the state's open primary system), with tens of thousands more overall: most of them, anti-Duke folks...

21/ When it was over, Duke had gotten 65k more votes than in 90, but his white share went to 55 (from 60) and overall to 39 (from 44) because the anti-Duke turnout swamped him...So what does this have to do with 2020 and Trump? Do I really need to explain it?...

22/ First, trying to flip Trump voters is a waste of time. Any of them who regret their vote don't need to be pandered to. They'll do the right thing. Don't focus on them. That said, very few will regret their vote. They cannot accept they voted for a monster or got suckered...

23/ Duke retained 94% of the folks he got the first time out (and got new people too), as Trump likely will. So forget these people--or at least don't wast time tailoring messages to them. And policy plans for affordable college don't mean shit to them, nor health care...

24/ Their support for Trump was never about policy. It was about the bigotry, the fact that he hates who they hate...Second, as for the "undecideds." ...Not many of these but seriously? If you're still undecided at this point about this guy...

25/ Then there is almost no way to know what would get you to make up your mind...I doubt it's a plan to deal with Wall Street though, or infrastructure, or tax policy...

26/ If anything, I would say crafting an argument that this is an existential crisis for the nation--and making it about Trump's bigotry and who we want to be as a country, would be far more effective in inspiring them to make up their minds...

27/ And what I know for a FACT is that this message--that Trumpism is a threat to everything we care about and love about this country--is what will inspire the Dem base to vote...and THAT is what this election is about...

28/ I'm not saying the Dems don't need policy ideas, but focusing on wonky, look-how-much-I've-thought about-this stuff is not going to move the needle in 2020...

29/ What the left never understands is: we need to stop approaching elections like the goddamned debate team, and start approaching it like the right does, like the cheer leading squad...

30/ The right knows psychology and we know public policy and sociology...great. The latter does not win elections...

31/ People who say the Dems should ignore Trump's race baiting because its some genius political strategy calculated to distract us, are idiots. He is no genius. And if you downplay it you NORMALIZE him. If you make this about policy, you NORMALIZE him. He is a racist...

32/ He is a white nationalist.

He is an authoritarian.

He and his cult are a threat to the future of the nation and world because of their hatreds.

His movement betrays the country's promise.

THAT is the message that will drive turnout. Not debates over marginal tax rates...

33/ Or how we are going to fund schools...And anyone who says we should ignore the race baiting to talk more about Mueller and Russia is an even bigger fool...that's like talking about Duke and late tax payments or other corruptions...it might all be true but is not the point...

34/ Not to say the House shouldn't impeach over that stuff. They should. But the 2020 candidates must craft a message that is not about that.

Trumpism is the threat to America, more than Putin.

And Putin didn't birth Trumpism.

Conservative White America did...

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acreativeintrovert-blog · 5 years

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So today's talk was on who we allow to mold our thinking. God, or this world under the rule of Satan? At Romans 12:2, we are counseled: “Stop being molded by this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, so that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Those inspired words show that whatever molded our thinking before we learned about God, it is possible to bring our thoughts into closer harmony with God’s. Does it really matter who molds our thinking? Why is it beneficial that we allow God to mold our thinking? Why do some people refuse to allow God to mold their thinking? And how can we protect ourselves from developing the thinking of this world?

•

Consider the situation between Jesus and Peter. Jesus, the one they expected to restore Israel’s kingdom, said that he would soon suffer and die. It was the apostle Peter who spoke up. “Be kind to yourself, Lord,” he said. “You will not have this happen to you at all.” Jesus countered: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you think, not God’s thoughts, but those of men.”—Matt. 16:21-23; Acts 1:6. Jesus made a distinction between thoughts that originate with God and thoughts that originate with this world under Satan’s control. (1 John 5:19) Peter echoed the self-sparing attitude of the world. But Jesus knew that his Father’s thinking was different. He knew that God wanted him to brace himself for the suffering and death that awaited him. Jesus' instant reply was a clear rejection of that worldly thinking, in favor of the thinking of his father. It's not always easy to align our thinking or viewpoint to God's. Actually, doing so requires a deliberate effort. On the other hand, it's all too easy to absorb the world’s thinking. That is because the spirit of the world is all around us. (Eph. 2:2) and because it often appeals to self-interest, the world’s way of thinking can be enticing.

•

Why might some actually resist allowing someone to mold their thinking? It's a growing trend lately, this whole "do what you want", "don't let anyone tell you what to do", “I think for myself,” movement. They want to make their own decisions and that is proper to do so. They do not wish to be controlled, nor do they want to surrender their individuality. But really, even the most independent of thinkers cannot avoid being influenced. Whether contemplating something so profound as the origin of life or simply deciding what to wear, people are to some degree affected by others. We can, however, choose whom we will allow to influence us. We're not giving up our individuality by molding our view point and thinking to that of God's. Much the opposite. 2 Corinthians 3:17 brings out that where the spirit of God is, there is freedom. God allowed us the freedom to develop unique personalities, and interestes. But there are some restrictions. When it comes to issues of right and wrong, God wants us to be guided by his thinking as revealed in his Word. Is this overly restrictive, or is it beneficial?

•

Considering something everyone of us is familiar with. That of parents and children. Parents set rules, rules to protect and guide their children. They try to instill values in them to be honest, considerate, and kind people. They're not being restrictive, no, they're trying to raise their children to be capable adults. If the children choose to live within the values that they learned from their parents, they will be more likely to make decisions that they will not later regret. As a result, they will be free from many self-induced troubles and anxieties. God is that parent. He is our Father. Like a good parent, God wants his children to have the most fulfilling life possible. He therefore provides basic principles for moral conduct and for behavior toward others. In such matters he invites us to cultivate his very way of thinking and to share his values. It helps us make choices that lead to happiness while still allowing us to blossom as individuals. In the long run, it is beneficial for us.

•

While the world as tried to offer advice on moral conduct, family relationships, job satisfaction, and other aspects of life. Much of it is out of harmony with godsG thinking. For example, self-promotion is often encouraged. So is tolerance of sexual immorality. Separation and divorce for frivolous reasons are sometimes advised as a means of achieving greater happiness. Not even the growing advancing technology, or higher education (nothing can be as high as learning about God though. Isa. 55:9) but none of it has been able to solve the major problems that stand in the way of happiness, such as war, racism, and crime. Moses, for example, was educated “in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” he looked to God for “a heart of wisdom.” (Acts 7:22; Ps. 90:12) He also petitioned God: “Make me know your ways.” (Ex. 33:13) The apostle Paul was an intelligent and learned man, yet, when it came to matters of principle, he rejected worldly wisdom. Instead, he based his reasoning on the Scriptures.

•

So how can we avoid having how thoughts molded to the world? For one, we must stop taking into our minds ideas or viewpoints that are in opposition to God’s. And we need to start taking in God's thoughts, his words through the Bible. We need to dwell and meditate on how He views things. We cant serve two masters. But it's impossible to avoid contact with the world entirely, after all kids need to go to school, and we need to go to work. Some exposure to its ideas is inescapable. However, where contact with ungodly views is unavoidable, we certainly need not entertain them or accept them. Like Jesus, we should be quick to reject thoughts that serve Satan’s purpose.

•

But we can protect ourselves from unnecessary exposure. One way, is that we should exercise caution when choosing our close friends. The Bible warns that if we keep close company with people who do not worship God, their thinking will rub off on us. Take King Solomon for example. God gave him wisdom. But King Solomon was influenced by his foreign wives and was lead astray from God to worship false ones. Another thing is by being selective when choosing entertainment. By rejecting entertainment that promotes the theory of evolution, violence, or immorality, we avoid poisoning our thinking with ideas that are against the knowledge of God. We need to be very careful. Satan likes to make things appear harmless, sudtle. For example, a news report might be angled in such a way so as to favor certain political opinions. Some movies and books promote the “me first” and “family first” philosophies, making them seem reasonable, appealing, even right. Even some children’s stories, though otherwise unobjectionable, may subtly lay the groundwork for accepting immoral behavior. One of the lady's in my congregation, who has a 5 year old, mentioned that Clifford, you know, the big red dog, well in one of the books recently has mentioned Cliffords dad having a boyfriend. Even directed to little kids now, they're trying to make it all acceptable. The feminist movement, one I'll admit I got caught up in, while the idea is great- considering God had intended women to be respected and treated equal- has a few snares. One is the topic of abortion. They cover it with the saying "Her body, her choice" But that's that same selfish reasoning that Peter had showed.

•

Remember, there are basically two sources of information—God and the world under Satan’s control. By which source are we being molded? The answer is, the source from which we obtain information. If we take in the world’s ideas, these will mold our thinking, inclining us toward fleshly points of view and behavior. That is why it is vital that we guard what we allow our minds to dwell on.

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augustahebrewisraelites-blog · 5 years

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Renowned HEBREW ISRAELITE Teacher and Book Author DR> FRANKLYN VICTOR BECKLES, JR. (”Azariyah Ben Yosef”), and his beautiful wife and his children!!!!

LEGACY OF THE HEBREW ISRAELITES

By Dr. F.V. Beckles

When Israel was a nation, they agreed to a set of covenant laws on Mount Sinai as a special contract with the living GOD (also known as AHAYAH in Hebrew which means “I AM”). It meant that they would be His people and He would be their God or “YAH”. Now with all contracts, which involves two parties, in this case YAH and Israel which had agreements that were spelled out in the contract or covenant. The ancient people of Israel were told that, if they obeyed the laws of the covenant, they would have YAH’s protection and be showered with many blessings, and if they disobeyed they would receive many punishments and curses.

Sadly, our ancestors chose to disobey, and following that fateful decision would thrust the Israelites into a series of calamities and troubles (“known as “Jacob’s trouble”), that would carry on throughout history and continue to plague the Black race unto this day! Before long, ancient Israel experienced a Civil War, which eventually split into two Kingdoms with the tribe of Judah leading the other tribes from the south and the rest of the tribes residing in the north. After a period of self-rule, the Assyrians threatened the independence of the Northern Kingdoms. We get that account in the Bible (2 Kings 18:11-12): “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel into Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed His covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded and would not hear them, nor do them.” This explains why the Northern Kingdoms were first led away into captivity (or slavery), while the Kingdom of Judah, remained alone and vulnerable also did what was evil in the sight of the Most High (The Living GOD).

2 Kings Chapter 24:3 explains “Surely at the commandment of the LORD came upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did;” Because of disobedience, God allowed the Kingdom of Judah and its rich capital, Jerusalem to be conquered by the Babylonians. Seventy long years of captivity was experienced by the ancient Israelites which failed to make them permanently change their wicked ways. Time after time, God would save His people, and they would betray Him, and their own people, causing their captivity to be prolonged until the Persian Empire conquered them. Ezra 1:1: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, the LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; He hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” That temple was rebuilt and the Hebrews continued to do wickedness in the sight of Yah, our Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of Judah failed to understand the prophecies of His Son Yahushua, like described in: Exodus 12:5, Zechariah 13:6, Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 7:14, Micah 5:2, and many other verses in Bible Scripture. Yahushua highlighted many parables prophesying Israel’s betrayal of their Messiah and foretold the many curses that would consume them in the latter days (Matthew 21:33-43). When the Children of Israel were under Roman captivity, and they conspired with the Roman Empire to murder our own Savior. The fate of the Israelites was sealed! Yahushua’s prophecies all came to pass, and because of the rejection of the Prophets of God, the Son of God, and His disciples, the Israelites were forever doomed to inherit the curses outlined in the Book of Deuteronomy and they would continue to be cursed until they sincerely repent and endure until the second coming of our Messiah (Deuteronomy 28:15-68)!!! These prophecies continued throughout history, beginning with the conquest of the Romans, which lasted for hundreds of years, until they eventually lost control to the Arabs (who were Moors), which controlled Jerusalem until the time of the Crusades, in which; White Europeans robbed from all of the Black Civilizations, rewrote mankind’s history to hide the vast accomplishments of Black Empires, and eventually gained ultimate control over the world by reshaping history and reinstituting slavery (which was originally conceived by ancient African Civilizations like Egypt) with the sole purpose of developing racism and targeting the black Hebrews, who escaped Roman persecution in 70 A.D., and fled back into Africa.

White Europeans carried on the evil and satanic legacy of the White Greeks and the Roman Empire using Imperialism and brutal conquest to make sure Black people would never rule the world again, and their greatest fears were the mighty heritage of the Israelites! They sought help from Africans (as they did many times before) to assist them in enslaving the Hebrews, particularly from the tribe of Judah. But it didn’t stop there, White Europeans eventually enslaved all the children of the 12 tribes of Israel and scattered them throughout the world. With the ultimate downfall of the Hebrews through slavery, paved the way for White Europeans to steal their identities, their records, their heritage, and their Bible Scriptures and tamper with them. Eventually White Europeans named Khazars (of the seed of Amalek son of Esau), assumed the identities of the Israelites, and after World War II, with the help from America and its European allies, they formed their own Israeli nation, which was described in the prophecies of the Bible in the Book of Revelation Chapter 2:9 “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” Yahushua prophesied that the Gentiles (White people) would trample down Jerusalem, and remain in control of that land until He returns to save His people (us -the true Israelites). The people in the nation of Israel today are not Jews, they are Gentiles! A fact documented by numerous sources, including credible authors like Arthur Koestler in his book “The Thirteenth Tribe”, and Shlomo Sand and his book “The Invention of the Jewish People”. Many so-called Jews themselves admit to stealing the identities of Israelites (especially through online resources like YouTube.com), and admit that the real descendants of the ancient Israelites are the so-called Negros, and according to genetic sciences like DNA research, it has been revealed that Negroes are not African at all, they are biologically Semitic Hebrews! Plus, these facts are substantiated in ancient maps, documenting places in Africa, where Europeans could kidnap Africans that belonged to the 12 tribes of Israel and ship them to the Americas and Europe! On the maps downloaded on Google.com, simply type in the words “Negroland Map”, and you can clearly see the name of “Juda” (meaning JUDAH) inscribed in the western part of Africa! Backing up what was documented in the Holy Bible; White people are not from the lineage of Japheth, they are in fact from the lineage of Esau, and “Negros” or “African Americans” are from the lineages of Shem and Jacob (Genesis 25:19-34)! Genesis 25:23-26 states: “The LORD said to her ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples (Black & White) from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other (Blacks), and the other will serve the younger’ (meaning prophecy of what will happen to Whites when Christ returns). When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red (Caucasian), and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau (later he was given the name “Edom”). After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob (Father of the Israelites). Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.” So, what happened to the real people of Judah? Scholars, Historians, Archeologists, Anthropologists, and many credible book authors like Rudolph R. Windsor, Ivan Van Sertima, and Rev. Franklyn V. Beckles, Sr., and many groundbreaking books like “From Babylon to Timbuktu”, substantiate the historical facts which are documented in the Holy Bible, identifying who the true Israelites were and who their descendants are today; as well as, revealing through Bible Scripture that the Israelites are clearly identified by their long history of disobedience to God and His laws and must fit the curses outlined in the Book of Deuteronomy. The only race of people who completely match the curses in Deuteronomy Chapter 28 are the Negros! Many credible and historically documented books back up this important fact, including the legendary book “The Hebrewisms of West Africa”. White Europeans utilized the African Slave Trade initially started by the Arabs, and eventually it became big business and was financed by the Roman Catholic Church. The Transatlantic Slave Trade evolved into a political, religious, and economic campaign to kidnap the true Israelites, and force them into slavery for the purposes of: robbing the homeland, stealing their identities, rewriting history, altering their Hebrew Scriptures (which was preserved in the “Dead Sea” by the Essenes), and using the intelligence of the Hebrew slaves and their strength to build America into the superpower nation that it is today! The Western World – (offspring of the Roman Empire) invented perpetual slavery to demoralize the true nation of Israel and brainwash them by using the sadistic and false teachings of racist bastards like Willie Lynch to alter the destiny of the children of Israel, and create a political system of racism, feminism, corruption, terrorism, genocide, eugenics, and Black on Black prejudice to further humiliate and destroy God’s Chosen people. Today the Elite (also known as the Illuminati) and their paid: college professors, church pastors, entertainers, news media, public school officials, politicians, and community leaders will have you believe that none of these facts are true, or that it doesn’t matter, and continue to promote lies that White “Jews” are the real Israelites, and Negros are Africans or Hamites. In truth, we are Shemites, Israelites, and the Lost Tribes of Israel! The Zondervan Bible Dictionary also backs up this conclusion; stating that the so-called Negros are not Africans, but are the descendants of Shem (one of the three sons of Noah), and Shem is the Patriarch of the Hebrews! We are in fact Hebrews! In Joel 3:6 “The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians (White people), that ye might remove them far from their border.” Sadly Psalm 83 is still in effect, our enemies continue to rule over us, women are appointed over the men, Blacks continue to (and will always) stab each other in the back, and they continue to hide our identities from us, they always seek to destroy us, and we destroy our own people through self-hatred and helping our enemies (the Gentiles) remain in power and to systematically murder us through Genocide, Imprisonment (Slavery), and Eugenics. We who know the truth are on our own, in constant danger, risk consistent slander, and must survive this time of Great Tribulation until Christ returns! For now, it’s every man for himself, you cannot trust anyone, especially those of our own people! Unfortunately, we are a race of backstabbers and idolaters (White people always exploit this fact), which is the main reason we fell as a people, succumb to a “slave mentality”, and most will never regain their former glory with God! You must stay encouraged, read your 1611 King James version Holy Bible, teach your children the truth about their true heritage as Hebrews, teach yourself and your family on how to obey the Commandments of God based on Bible Scripture, and never give up seeking God. Let go of the past, repent and sincerely change from all of your wicked ways, receive Christ as our Lord and Savior (John 3:16), be baptized in the Holy Ghost, and continue to persevere, obey all of God’s Commandments, read your Bible and pray to God every day, and be ready to await Yahshua's return from the heavens to rescue and deliver us, the true people of God, His Chosen seed, and His Remnant from Satan and his unholy kingdoms!

The greatest secret that is being kept in the world today is who the real children of God are. An important fact is that there is a real agenda aimed at Black Americans who are the only ones that are being targeted through the Western World’s Eugenics program. An agenda set forth by what the world calls the Illuminati. According to the Bible they are identified as the Synagogue of satan (Revelation 2:9 and 3:9).They have been the enemies to the Children of God since the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Greek. Unwittingly, they have been fulfilling Bible scriptures foretold by The Most High God of Israel (Genesis 3) to attack and destroy God’s Chosen Seed who remains in the earth today. This warfare has been spiritual, mental, and physical on all levels (Ephesians 6). They have used various tactics such as religion, that traces back to Ancient Babylon. This Elite has been behind the political, religious and educational system set to destroy the Children of Israel. The whole world has been behind this conspiracy against God’s children (Psalm 83). They in fact have always known who the true children of God are. The Children of God are in fact Negroes (Deuteronomy 28:68). This fact goes against all religious teachings, because we have been brainwashed into a satanic governmental system that is based on lies and is in fact committed to keeping the true identity of the Children of Israel a secret. This governmental system was identified publicly by U.S. President George Bush in the 1980’s -as the New World Order. A political masterplan that was originally set in place by the Egyptians. Which is why America models everything after Ancient Egypt (Exodus Chapter 1). These Illuminist powers used the blueprint of Ancient Egypt to systematically destroy the Children of God since their downfall after King Solomon’s reign. When they fell as a people they were enslaved by their enemies who are what the world calls Europeans today, but they are in fact what the Bible calls Edomites. These Edomites are in fact Caucasians according to the Bible, White people are the main enemies to the children of God. These enemies of God whitewashed mankind’s true history and the historical records of the Israelites. All in a coordinated effort to hide the real identity of God’s chosen people. They have used World Wars as a pretext to steal their homeland in 1948. The Jewish-Israeli people are in fact Romans and Jewish converts -not the true Jews according to the Bible and not of the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How could this happen? You may ask. Well the Bible answers that question. The Nation of Israel fell as a people due to disobedience to God’s laws, statutes, and commandments (Deuteronomy 28:15). This disobedience to their God (whose name is AHAYAH “I Am”), caused them to suffer curses that will plagued them forever and is a sign of who the real Jews are and how they will be scattered throughout the earth. During the 1600’s White Europeans saw an opportunity to take advantage of their downfall by conspiring with other Gentiles, such as the Africans to kidnap Negroes who are Hebrews and sell them into slavery. It is a common misconception that all Black people are the same. In fact they are not all the same, in truth the Black race is the most diverse race on the planet. Only the White race is all the same, this information has been proven by Anthropologists and History scholars around the world (Zondervan Bible dictionary). One may ask how did this race war between the Children of God and the Caucasoid hybrid race began. It was prophesied by the Most High in the Book of Genesis Chapter 3. When Eve betrayed her husband and made a covenant with satan. Satan promised her knowledge and power which is the reason why the world exalts women today (“Feminism” and Goddess worship), which is an abomination to God! A spiritual and racial battle was set in place when God told satan that there will be enmity (strife) between satan’s seed and God’s seed. Which means satan has a seed in the earth that is committed to destroying the seed of God (Genesis Chapters 25-27). This ancient battle was set in motion before the Great Flood during the days of Noah and resurfaced again with the birth of Jacob and Esau -two distinct nationalities (which means two different races of people). The descendants of Jacob became the children of God. The descendants of Esau evolved to become the Greco-Roman Empire. Esau’s lineage which is the seed of satan, officially put their plan in action to exterminate the Children of God in 70 A.D. When they laid siege against Jerusalem and forced most of the Hebrews to flee into Africa. This record is recorded in the books by the historian Josephus and the book “From Babylon to Timbuktu”, as well as many other historical records. The Hebrews a magnificent race of people that ruled all of Africa and before and after the downfall of the Roman Empire they ruled over Asia and Europe! According to historical records and in and outside of the Bible the Israelites continued to sin against their God. Which forced The Most High, AHAYAH to allow His children to be enslaved by their enemies time and time again and scattered them throughout the four corners of the earth. Which led to their final downfall during the Arab and Transatlantic slave trades. This takedown would begin a Gentile Coalition to set in place a plan of Eugenics and a system of perpetual slavery to keep the Children of Israel from ever becoming a nation again. Which is the real reason why America was established as a nation. The Romans became Jewish converts and financed the slave trades and created a western world society that became an extension of the Roman Empire (a “Rebirth”). Through this political and religious system they would keep the Children of God in constant physical and mental darkness. This system is called Zionism and Freemasonry. As identified by masons like Albert Pike in his book ”Morals & Dogma”. This elaborate plan would involve America's most celebrated icons. Who in fact are not heroes but satanists. People like George Washington, Willie Lynch, Margaret Sanger, and Uncle Tom Negroes like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Jesse Jackson. The children of satan also set up a partnership with Negro religious and political leaders who were famous sellouts for bringing forth their New World Order agenda, to keep the Children of God in bondage in the New World which is called America! During the course of 400 years, this country has successfully carried on its racist and genicital conspiracy against Negroes to victimize them with poor housing, putting drugs in Black neighborhoods, promoting abortions, demonizing Black men, and forcing integration with White people and their institutions, and flooding the prison system with Black men due to false arrests and corrupt police departments. Which is why the American political and legal system has been encouraging the unlawful shootings and public executions of Black men all across America. Which is fueled by the Donald Trump Administration, which is the reason why the President and United States Congress is in agreement with building a border wall. They are fulfilling Bible prophecy listed in 2nd Esdras chapters 13-16. Their ancestors, the Romans did the same thing in 70 A.D when they set up a wall to starve out the Hebrews in Masada. The exciting and troubling times that are happening in America today, is in fact Bible prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes! Donald Trump’s true mission is to carry out the agenda carried on by Roman the Catholic Church. Which is why America is ramping up social immorality throughout the earth such as homosexuality and other sexual perversions like sodomy and sex trafficking. These are the vices that the Roman Catholic Church supports, which is why the news media is always revealing sexual perversions that Catholic priests are routinely involved in and being accused of. The enemies of God know who the real Jews are and are committed to enforcing a perpetual cycle of sin in America so that the Negroes who are Hebrews could never rise and come together or be a nation ever again. In conclusion, the solution to this growing problem is for Hebrews to return to their God AHAYAH, obey His commandments, repent of their sins and be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and The Holy Spirit (Matthew Chapter 28 and the Book of Acts Chapter 2), and separate from Gentiles. The greatest mistake of Hebrews in America ever committed was to listen to evil women who were sellouts like Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Cynthia Mckinney who pushed for integration and for Negro women to be leaders when the Black men were supposed to be the leaders of the Black race. Integration, mixing with Gentiles, and Feminism are an abomination according to the Bible. I highly recommend watching the historic documentary films: “Hebrew or the so called Negro” and “Hebrews to Negroes”. The truth that Negroes are the real Jews, and the Awakening of God's Chosen people is spreading all over the world! If you are a Hebrew, I sincerely hope that you take part in this glorious Hebrew Israelite movement. Repent from your sins and return to The Most High -God of the Israelites, so that The Lord our Messiah (whose name in the Hebrew language is “YASHAYAH”) can return and put these evil Gentiles who are our enemies into subjection and return AHAYAH’s Chosen Remnant to their former glory as the true NATION OF ISRAEL (Book of Revelation Chapter 7)!

THE END

About The Author: Author DR. FRANKLYN VICTOR BECKLES, JR.

Book Author Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., is the first

African American to organize and lead a civil rights march to protest against

bullying, and racial profiling and discrimination in Public Schools in Augusta

Georgia! Read about his inspiring works as a Community Leader by Author Nathan

Van Sertima: “Dr. Beckles vs. the Richmond County Board of Education”

(Amazon.com). www.aikenstandard.com/article/20160110/AIK0101/160119950/

Community Leader Dr. Franklyn V. Beckles, Jr., organized the first historic

Civil Rights Crusade against Racial Injustice and Bullying in Richmond County

Schools in the history of the state of Georgia! eBook Writer Dr. Beckles (a.k.a. "Azariyah Ben Yosef") is a unsung hero and pioneer in the Hebrew Israelite Movement in America and a true Witness of God, who is happily married and the father of eight children!

Famous Book Author and unsung Civil Rights Pioneer - HIS INSPIRING TRUE STORY: "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER DR. FRANKLYN VICTOR BECKLES, JR." I was born in 1972. My father and mother are Rev. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Sr., and Mrs. Samella Beckles. I was raised by good parents who were intelligent and educated, middle-class African Americans. My family’s biological roots stem from the African immigrants of the Caribbean and the Americas, whose ancestry can be traced back to the original Israelites, the Islamic Moors, and African Kings that ruled the first civilizations that once conquered the world! My life has always been a long struggle of setbacks, disappointments, and great accomplishments. Fortunately, God loves me and has blessed me with everlasting favor, which allows for my successes in life to our way my failures. I grew up in Southern California, and in 1988 my family relocated to the Central Savannah River Area (Aiken/Augusta), a place in South Carolina and Georgia were racism, government corruption, corporate job discrimination, feminism, homosexuality, political scandals, and social injustice are a unique scourge on society! It was here that I have lived most of my adult life, fighting against the evil vices mentioned of the natives in the C.S.R.A. I persevered with my father to become a positive Christian role model and inspirational leader in the Black Community for 28 years! Through the grace and mercy of God, I was able to withstand the overwhelming trials and tribulations of consistent racism, routine job discrimination, harassment, constant corrupt law enforcement, false arrests, growing social immorality, unjust feminism, government misconduct, habitual corporate injustice, violation of employee and minority civil rights in South Carolina and Georgia. Despite it all, I graduated from high school in 1991, and was the Scholar of the year and weightlifting champion. I served in the U.S. Armed Forces, and in 1999, I graduated with honors from the University of South Carolina State. I developed skill as a talented writer and became the first African American to become Editor-in-Chief of a major online Comic Book Publishing Company in 1999. By 2002, I graduated again at the top of my class from graduate school with a PhD., in Theological Studies and Divinity from the New Life Theological Seminary in Orangeburg, S.C. Officially I became a Church Pastor in 2005, and was ordained in 2008, where I married the love of my life, Mrs. Adrian Felicia Beckles. We quickly started a family of our own, and eventually became blessed to be the proud father of five wonderful children! I’m happily married and plan to stay that way till death do us part! We truly love each other (which you don’t see with most couples nowadays), and we plan to have more kids. The Lord Jesus Christ continues to bless me indeed. My greatest accomplishment is having a beautiful and blessed family. The Lord wants me to document my other achievements to be a testimony of His glory (John 3:16). I was a prominent and successful public school teacher for 8 years, appointed principal of a renowned private school, became a paid firefighter for 4 years, served as the first African American to be Captain of the Clearwater Fire Department, and was a volunteer firefighter for 16 years. I was a Christian Comic Book Writer, Church Pastor, Business Manager, Triathlete, and TV Evangelist for 11 years. In 2016, I broke a Guinness World Record by jogging across two states to raise awareness and money for the Georgia ALS Association, to find a cure to save the lives of victims of Lou Gehrig’s disease and help people like my father! But my happiest accomplishments was officially becoming a legitimate writer, civil rights activist, and published book author for the past 5 years, after struggling to get my work published in books and eBooks for the 17 years! Now I’m a paid Book Author, eBook Publisher, an internationally renowned Christian Comic Book Writer, and an African American Business Entrepreneur. I own and direct a prosperous and prominent Christian Private School, Bible College, and a Medical Transportation Company, and I reside in a wealthy neighborhood in Columbia County, Georgia. Back in 2013, I made the national news becoming a Civil Rights Pioneer! A famed Black Historian brought the attention of the world of my unsung contribution to Black History as a successful Community Leader, Civil Rights Activist, and Political Candidate in Richmond County, Georgia. In fact many books, magazines, and articles were written and published all over the Internet, documenting my achievements as a Black Community Leader by dozens of inspired authors and fans. Profiling me as a crusader against racial injustice and a new leader or spokesperson for the Black Community protesting against all forms of immorality like: racism, police corruption and brutality, feminism and homosexuality, and especially targeting the growing crisis of bullying in the public schools in Augusta Georgia. What started it all, was a growing problem with mistreatment, abuse, neglect, and discrimination against African American boys in the public schools of Aiken County, S.C., and the Richmond County area in Augusta Georgia (see historic book “Conspiracy Against Black Boys”). The original pioneer was my father, Rev. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Sr., a notable and respected College Professor since 1985! He was the first African American to establish a Charter School and Private Christian Academy in the city of Aiken South Carolina in 1988. There Rev. Beckles revolutionized the field of Education with his private school Aiken Academy, by promoting quality education to prevent minority students from all over the C.S.R.A., from dropping out of school or being constantly victimized by the embattled public school systems. In 2009, I followed in my father’s footsteps by establishing my own private school called The Children’s Christian to combat the problem of incompetent public school educators, negligent female and racist teachers, and corrupt Richmond County Board of Education administrators. In 2013, I launched a community campaign with other concerned parents to lead a public and televised march through the streets of downtown Augusta, to protest against the abuse of minority students by faculty members, and advocate against bullying in the public schools! We addressed the issue of dishonest Principals allowing bullying to go unpunished in their schools. As the leader of the team of protesters (which included my wife and kids), we forced the School Superintendent to make positive changes in the public schools, and later forced him to resign due to allegations of corruption and misconduct on the behalf of the Richmond County Board of Education. The civil rights march was a success, only my family stood by me all the way, and the Richmond County School System is much better now because of what we did. The publicity sparked the outrage of the whole Community against the Board of Education for all the criminal activity that they allowed to go on in their public schools! Somethings still haven’t changed. Many Black Students and their Parents were victimized and harassed by the Richmond County Board of Education, including me and my son Christian Alexander Beckles. Which is the main reason, why I started my own private school to properly educate my kids and other children in the community who were unfairly kicked out of the public schools due to discrimination. No one except for me and my family had the guts to stand up to the Richmond County Board of Education, and address the turmoil of bullying, corruption, false arrests, and injustice in the public schools in Augusta Georgia. For decades, nothing had been done to fight against discrimination and injustice of the Richmond County Board of Education since the 1960’s! The only progress was that now the government agencies and the businesses had both black and white people, and especially women harassing, targeting, and discriminating against Black Men (which is crisis all over the world)! The simple fact remains (and to this day) - that no Community Leader had ever stepped forward to fight the dishonest and negligent School System of Augusta Georgia, until I did from 2003 to 2014! My public campaign to address the issue of bullying in public schools was revolutionary and was celebrated by every newspaper and TV News Station across the C.S.R.A., that entire year of 2013! With support from over 800 people in the Black Community, I finally ran for office to be the next Board of Education Member of District 2, and now I’m a candidate for the position of School Superintendent of Richmond County! In 2014, Nathan Van Sertima published a historic book documenting my biography and contribution to African American History as a crusader for the Black Community, and considered me to be a modern version of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., despite being routinely slandered and attacked by disgruntled and bitter racist, feminist, homosexual, and Uncle Tom degenerates! God continues to bless me to survive and withstand the relentless backlash and blackball tactics of the elite cult of corrupt political and religious leaders in the Central Savannah River Area. Currently, I retired from teaching, became a full-time Book Author, and the father of six kids! My family and I continue to manage our businesses, and my son is the Director of my Christian School. I have published over 200 books, and I get paid in royalties for each book every month. I am a success in life, and I have no regrets, God still blesses me and shows me and my family favor every day. I am proud that He has allowed me to make a positive mark on the world, and to be a living testimony of His everlasting GRACE and MERCY!!!!

THE END

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near-santa-ana-ca-blog · 5 years

Text

Near Santa Ana CA

History

youtube

The Santa Ana area in California was explored by a Spanish expedition led by Gaspár de Portolá in 1769. The area was named Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana in honor of Saint Anne by the people who founded the new settlement. The fertile ground that was suitable for crops and cattle grazing turned the city to a farming community that fed the area. Majority of the original settlers used the area for crops while others raised cattle. The community was officially laid out in 1869 as more and more people have been going to the area since the 1860s. Development went into effect and the city was renamed Santa Ana.

Santa Ana CA

East End Incubator Commercial Kitchens provide a number of equipment options including a refrigerator, a freezer, a prep station, a hand wash station, 3 compartment sinks, a prep sink, a work table, and a 6 burner range/convection base. They also optional equipment such as a tilt kettle, stand mixer (30qt), combi steamer/oven, blast chiller, convection steamer, smoker, and more. For larger production, they also have a Doyon baking oven, a tilting skillet braising pan, a countertop griddle, and a convection steamer. The company offers an online reservation system, opportunities to sell and sample on-site at the specialty food market, as well as the chance to host classes and dinners.

Confederate Monument in Santa Ana Cemetery, One of Last Remaining in California, Is Vandalized

The 7-ton granite monument is dedicated to those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. It includes the names of 33 people with ties to the Confederacy, including Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In the past two years, as monuments and statues dedicated to Confederate soldiers have been taken down throughout the country amid an outcry over the glorification of a history tied to slavery and racism, the Orange County Cemetery District Board grappled with a decision regarding the monument’s future. Read more here

The Sons of Confederate Veterans monument was erected in the Santa Ana Cemetery in 2004 and is one of the last remaining Confederate monuments in California. It was vandalized days after the Fourth of July, with red painted word "racists" written down vertically on one side. The 7-ton granite monument has been dedicated to those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and includes the names of 33 people with ties to the Confederacy. Some of these include Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The Orange County Cemetery District Board has been grappling with a decision regarding the monument’s future since monuments and statues dedicated to Confederate soldiers have been taken down throughout the country amid an outcry over the glorification of a history tied to slavery and racism in the past two years.

Adventure City in Santa Ana, CA

Adventure City is one of the smallest amusement parks in Stanton, California. It features seventeen rides, shows, and attractions at an affordable price! Two of their popular and thrilling rides are the 45-foot-drop tower called the Drop Zone, and the 40-foot-high Rewind Racers, which is the country’s first forward-and-reverse–style family coaster. You can also check out the Adventure City Express Train for a scenic trip around the park or get a little loony on the crazy bus. They also have a petting farm, interactive children's shows, and so much more! Adventure City is just a few miles from the Disneyland® Park resort and receives an average attendance of between 200,000 and 400,000 per year.

Link to map

Driving Direction

23 min (15.1 miles)

via I-5 S

Fastest route, despite the usual traffic

Adventure City

1238 S Beach Blvd, Anaheim, CA 92804

Get on CA-91 E/State Hwy 91 E in Buena Park

7 min (3.0 mi)

Take I-5 S to E Santa Ana Blvd in Santa Ana. Take exit 104B from I-5 S

11 min (11.1 mi)

Continue on E Santa Ana Blvd. Drive to E 4th St

4 min (0.9 mi)

East End Incubator Commercial Kitchens

201 E 4th St

Santa Ana, CA 92701

#Near Santa Ana CA #Santa Ana CA

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hebrewisraeliteshistory-blog · 6 years

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The Hebrew Israelite Great Awakening

When Israel was a nation, they agreed to a set of covenant laws on Mount Sinai as a special contract with the living GOD (also known as AHAYAH in Hebrew which means “I AM” and his name in Hebrew is YAHUAH/YAHAWAH). It meant that they would be His people and He would be their God or “YAH”. Now with all contracts, which involves two parties, in this case YAH and Israel which had agreements that were spelled out in the contract or covenant. The ancient people of Israel were told that, if they obeyed the laws of the covenant, they would have YAH’s protection and be showered with many blessings, and if they disobeyed they would receive many punishments and curses. Sadly, our ancestors chose to disobey, and following that fateful decision would thrust the Israelites into a series of calamities and troubles (“known as “Jacob’s trouble”), that would carry on throughout history and continue to plague the Black race unto this day! Before long, ancient Israel experienced a Civil War, which eventually split into two Kingdoms with the tribe of Judah leading the other tribes from the south and the rest of the tribes residing in the north. After a period of self-rule, the Assyrians threatened the independence of the Northern Kingdoms. We get that account in the Bible (2 Kings 18:11-12): “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel into Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed His covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded and would not hear them, nor do them.” This explains why the Northern Kingdoms were first led away into captivity (or slavery), while the Kingdom of Judah, remained alone and vulnerable also did what was evil in the sight of the Most High (The Living

GOD). 2 Kings Chapter 24:3 explains “Surely at the commandment of the LORD came upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did;” Because of disobedience, God allowed the Kingdom of Judah and its rich capital, Jerusalem to be conquered by the Babylonians. Seventy long years of captivity was experienced by the ancient Israelites which failed to make them permanently change their wicked ways. Time after time, God would save His people, and they would betray Him, and their own people, causing their captivity to be prolonged until the Persian Empire conquered them. Ezra 1:1: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, the LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; He hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” That temple was rebuilt and the Hebrews continued to do wickedness in the sight of Yah, our Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of Judah failed to understand the prophecies of His Son Yahushua, like described in: Exodus 12:5, Zechariah 13:6, Genesis 49:10, Isiah 7:14, Micah 5:2, and many other verses in Bible Scripture. Yahushua highlighted many parables prophesying Israel’s betrayal of their Messiah and foretold the many curses that would consume them in the latter days (Matthew 21:33-43). When the Children of Israel were under Roman captivity, and they conspired with the Roman Empire to murder our own Savior. The fate of the Israelites was sealed! Yahushua’s prophecies all came to pass, and because of the rejection of the Prophets of God, the Son of God, and His disciples, the Israelites were forever doomed to inherit the curses outlined in the Book of Deuteronomy and they would continue to be cursed until they sincerely repent and endure until the second coming of our Messiah (Deuteronomy 28:15-68)!!! These prophecies continued throughout history, beginning with the conquest of the Romans, which lasted for hundreds of years, until they eventually lost control to the Arabs (who were Moors), which controlled Jerusalem until the time of the Crusades, in which; White Europeans robbed from all of the Black Civilizations, rewrote mankind’s history to hide the vast accomplishments of Black Empires, and eventually gained ultimate control over the world by reshaping history and reinstituting slavery (which was originally conceived by ancient African Civilizations like Egypt) with the sole purpose of developing racism and targeting the black Hebrews, who escaped Roman persecution in 70 A.D., and fled back into Africa. White Europeans carried on the evil and satanic legacy of the White Greeks and the Roman Empire using Imperialism and brutal conquest to make sure Black people would never rule the world again, and their greatest fears were the mighty heritage of the Israelites! They sought help from Africans (as they did many times before) to assist them in enslaving the Hebrews, particularly from the tribe of Judah. But it didn’t stop there, White Europeans eventually enslaved all the children of the 12 tribes of Israel and scattered them throughout the world. With the ultimate downfall of the Hebrews through slavery, paved the way for White Europeans to steal their identities, their records, their heritage, and their Bible Scriptures and tamper with them. Eventually White Europeans named Kharzars (of the seed of Amalek son of Esau), assumed the identities of the Israelites, and after World War II, with the help from America and its European allies, they formed their own Israeli nation, which was described in the prophecies of the Bible in the Book of Revelation Chapter 2:9 “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” Yahushua prophesied that the Gentiles (White people) would trample down Jerusalem, and remain in control of that land until He returns to save His people (us -the true Israelites). The people in the nation of Israel today are not Jews, they are Gentiles! A fact documented by numerous sources, including credible authors like Arthur Koestler in his book “The Thirteenth Tribe”, and Shalamo Sand and his book “The Invention of the Jewish People”. Many so-called Jews themselves admit to stealing the identities of Israelites (especially through online resources like YouTube.com), and admit that the real descendants of the ancient Israelites are the so-called Negros, and according to genetic sciences like DNA research, it has been revealed that Negros are not African at all, they are biologically Semitic Hebrews! Plus, these facts are substantiated in ancient maps, documenting places in Africa, where Europeans could kidnap Africans that belonged to the 12 tribes of Israel and ship them to the Americas and Europe! On the maps downloaded on Google.com, simply type in the words “Negroland Map”, and you can clearly see the name of “Juda” (meaning JUDAH) inscribed in the western part of Africa! Backing up what was documented in the Holy Bible; White people are not from the lineage of Japheth, they are in fact from the lineage of Esau, and “Negros” or “African Americans” are from the lineages of Shem and Jacob (Genesis 25:19-34)! Genesis 25:23-26 states: “The LORD said to her ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples (Black & White) from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other (Blacks), and the other will serve the younger’ (meaning prophecy of what will happen to Whites when Christ returns). When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red (Caucasian), and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau (later he was given the name “Edom”). After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob (Father of the Israelites). Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.” So, what happened to the real people of Judah? Scholars, Historians, Archeologists, Anthropologists, and many credible book authors like Rudolf R. Windsor, Ivan Van Sertima, and Rev.

Franklyn V. Beckles, Sr., and many groundbreaking books like “From Babylon to Timbuktu”, substantiate the historical facts which are documented in the Holy Bible, identifying who the true Israelites were and who their descendants are today; as well as, revealing through Bible Scripture that the Israelites are clearly identified by their long history of disobedience to God and His laws and must fit the curses outlined in the Book of Deuteronomy. The only race of people who completely match the curses in Deuteronomy Chapter 28 are the Negros! Many credible and historically documented books back up this important fact, including the legendary book “The Hebrewisms of West Africa”. White Europeans utilized the African Slave Trade initially started by the Arabs, and eventually it became big business and was financed by the Roman Catholic Church. The Transatlantic Slave Trade evolved into a political, religious, and economic campaign to kidnap the true Israelites, and force them into slavery for the purposes of: robbing the homeland, stealing their identities, rewriting history, altering their Hebrew Scriptures (which was preserved in the “Dead Sea” by the Essenes), and using the intelligence of the Hebrew slaves and their strength to build America into the superpower nation that it is today! The Western World – (offspring of the Roman Empire) invented perpetual slavery to demoralize the true nation of Israel and brainwash them by using the sadistic and false teachings of racist bastards like Willie Lynch to alter the destiny of the children of Israel, and create a political system of racism, feminism, corruption, terrorism, genocide, eugenics, and Black on Black prejudice to further humiliate and destroy God’s Chosen people. Today the Elite (also known as the Illuminati) and their paid: college professors, church pastors, entertainers, news media, public school officials, politicians, and community leaders will have you believe that none of these facts are true, or that it doesn’t matter, and continue to promote lies that White “Jews” are the real Israelites, and Negros are Africans or Hamites. In truth, we are Shemites, Israelites, and the Lost Tribes of Israel! The Zondervan Bible Dictionary also backs up this conclusion; stating that the so-called Negros are not Africans, but are the descendants of Shem (one of the three sons of Noah), and Shem is the Patriarch of the Hebrews! We are in fact Hebrews! In Joel 3:6 “The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians (White people), that ye might remove them far from their border.” Sadly Psalm 83 is still in effect, our enemies continue to rule over us, women are appointed over the men, Blacks continue to (and will always) stab each other in the back, and they continue to hide our identities from us, they always seek to destroy us, and we destroy our own people through self-hatred and helping our enemies (the Gentiles) remain in power and to systematically murder us through Genocide, Imprisonment (Slavery), and Eugenics. We who know the truth are on our own, in constant danger, risk consistent slander, and must survive this time of Great Tribulation until Christ returns! For now, it’s every man for himself, you cannot trust anyone, especially those of our own people!

Unfortunately, we are a race of backstabbers and idolaters (White people always exploit this fact), which is the main reason we fell as a people, succumb to a “slave mentality”, and most will never regain their former glory with God! You must stay encouraged, read your 1611 King James Version Holy Bible, teach your children the truth about their true heritage as Hebrews, teach yourself and your family on how to obey the Commandments of God based on Bible Scripture, and never give up seeking God. Let go of the past, repent and sincerely change from all of your wicked ways, receive Christ as our Lord and Savior

(John 3:16), be baptized in the Holy Ghost, and continue to persevere, obey all of God’s Commandments, read your Bible and pray to God every day, and be ready to await Yahushua’s return from the heavens to rescue and deliver us, the true people of God, His Chosen seed, and His Remnant from Satan and his unholy kingdoms! In the year 2016, a unique phenomenon occurred when a Christian church pastor named Dr. Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., was falsely accused and arrested of a crime he didn’t commit and was repeatedly slandered and lied on by agitators in his community who were all: uncle tom sellouts, homosexuals, feminists, and redneck degenerates that hated the pastor and crusader because he was a civil rights leader and only advocate against social injustice and police corruption. Fighting for the civil rights of Black men who were being targeted, shot down like dogs, and falsely arrested in the racist and sadistic state of Georgia. Dr. Beckles was well-known for crusading against bullying and racial discrimination in the public schools in Augusta, Georgia and Aiken, South Carolina. Unlike most people, Dr. Beckles was a hero very much like Malcolm X, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Khalid Muhammed, and Nat Turner. His own people in the Black Communities repeatedly turned their backs on him because, they were being systematically demoralized by the corrupt Black churches, police departments, racist businesses, incompetent public schools, and various government agencies managed by reprobate men and women that kept rising to power in politics and religion! Dr. Beckles was the only preacher that would expose the government and corporate corruption and racial discrimination in the South Carolina and Georgia region called the Central Savannah River Area. Dr. Beckles began to make more enemies when he preached according to the Holy Bible against feminism (1 Timothy chapter 2 –etc.), homosexuality, racism, black on black crime and injustice, and exposing job discrimination aimed at Black men to supply the corrupt prison system at his small church. Word spread like wildfire and local TV news affiliates sent reporters to televise the radical but honest Christian Preacher. This sent shockwaves that rocked the racist and corrupt city of Augusta. The pastor received death threats and was victimized and terrorized by the scandalous and corrupt Richmond County Sheriff’s Department. Dr. Beckles soon relocated his family to Evans, Georgia (another notoriously racist community connected to but just outside the city of Augusta). Upon getting a job as a Volunteer Teacher at a local high school which has a long history of public school misconduct that includes: cheating at football games, fabricating test scores, drug & sex abuse, administration corruption, and racial discrimination. Unknown to Dr. Beckles, a sophisticated plot was hatched when the word when out that Dr. Beckles was running for political office. The school board along with the Sheriff’s Department fabricated a police report to get approval from a judge to send out a warrant for the unlawful arrest of the unsuspecting honest pastor. Dr. Beckles was thrown in jail on “trumped up” felony charges when he didn’t even have a criminal record! Once in jail; just like how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was treated, Dr. Beckles was never read his Miranda Rights and was repeatedly questioned against his will in jail without legal counsel when he requested it and wasn’t officially arrested until two days after he was illegally detained by the police! He was rushed to a privately owned prison in Evans, where he discovered that he this plot was a money making scheme and vengeful vendetta that was set up by all of the corrupt political and religious leaders in the community that where his enemies to simply get him out of the way because he was uplifting and inspiring the impoverished Black Community and Dr. Beckles was a serious threat to the established demonic Elite power structure in the C.S.R.A. At the time, he was running for office to be a Board Member for the Public School Board of Education and would have made a difference in the dishonest and incompetent school system in Augusta that was being run by evil feminist women, racists, and homosexuals! While in prison, Pastor Beckles started a prison ministry and led many inmates to receive “Jesus Christ” The Son of God (in Hebrew His name is YAHAWAHSHI –a Black man/Revelation chapter 1) as their Lord and Savior. Eventually, the charges was dropped, but Dr. Beckles was a changed man (much like the Apostle Paul) and never forgot what happened and turned his life around by getting closer to the God of Israel whose name in the Hebrew is

AHAYAH ASHER AHAYAH “I AM THAT I AM” (Book of Exodus Chapter 3:14). Instantly, he was converted from the Roman pagan brainwashing of “Christianity” that he was taught in the American Theological Schools and realized that he was in fact a real Jew from the Bloodline and seed of biblical

Hebrew Patriarch Abraham. Based on the records of the Holy Bible (Book of Deuteronomy chapter 28), Bible Scholars and Book Authors like himself from around the world were waking up to the hidden secrets of the Bible that was prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel! Dr. Beckles was revived by The Holy Spirit as thrusted into the Great Awakening of Black Hebrew Israelites throughout the four corners of the earth as identified in Ezekiel chapter 37! People waking up from the false religion of “Christianity” began tracing the curses documented in the Bible that only point to and identify one specific race of people on the planet and according to the Holy Bible these people would have to reclaim their lost heritage and repent of their sins if they are to receive eternal salvation through Christ! The ONLY people that fit the many curses documented in the Bible are the so-called Negroes scattered abroad and are on the bottom of every society because they broke they were the only ones given the Commandments through Moses and broke the Laws of The Most High (Deuteronomy chapters 28 to 32)! Unfortunately, these biblical facts that pertains to God’s chosen people was never preached in the Christian churches in the Western World that was established by “Jewish” Zionists (a.k.a. “White people”- Genesis chapter 25 to 36) that are clearly identified in Bible Scripture as the children of Satan and are NOT the real Jews (Revelation chapters 2:9 and 3:9). Upon waking up to his true heritage and nationality as a Jew (commonly identified as a “Hebrew Israelite”), Dr. Beckles changed his American slave name that was given to him to the name that his Heavenly Father wanted him to have –Azariyah Ben Yosef! Dr. Beckles was no more! Now The Most High Yah of Israel transformed him into His Witness and Apostle! Dr. Azariyah Ben Yosef soon became an Elder of a Hebrew Church and Bible Study Academy, a Director of an accredited Private School for young children, and a leader of a Hebrew Israelite Community in Hephzibah, Georgia! Azariyah’s Hebrew Bible Academy started up as a home school facility and grew worldwide through social media educating his own children and kids all over the state of Georgia that were victimized by bullying, racism, and kicked out of the public schools that had a history of failing minority students. Elder Azariyah became a published book author and wrote many Christian books for Hebrew Israelites, exposing social injustice, feminism, racism, and inspired Black men to step up as leaders in their communities and homes, and follow the Yah of The Hebrews AHAYAH (Book of Exodus) and obey His Laws, Patriarchal Traditions, and Commandments outlined in The Holy Bible from The Book of Genesis to Revelations based on The 1611 King James Version Bible! Eventually, his Hebrew Bible Academy and eBooks gained popularity on the internet and inspired many people all over the world to support and fund his Bible Academy and Ministry. Azariyah soon formed a Hebrew Israelite Group (the only one in Augusta) named “One Body in AHAYAH” and traveled around the country with his Hebrew Bible School and educated and helped more people than he ever did as a Christian Church Pastor or Civil Rights Leader! Elder Azariyah Ben Yosef also established charity marathons to raise money for a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease to save innocent lives like his father, and set up Bible Academy Lessons on

YouTube.com for Hebrew Israelite children to educate them on the biblical and true doctrine of Christ for the past two years! His outstanding efforts to help people in the Black community during the past five years despite black on black crime and feminism from his own people, finally earned him recognition by other civil rights leaders who inducted his name among other heroes as a pioneer in the Hebrew Israelite Movement at the 2018 Hebrew Israelite Awards Ceremony! Currently, Elder Azariyah is a famous Hebrew Israelite eBook Writer and published Book Author on Amazon.com. Azariyah is well-known around the world for writing eBooks for Israelites and pastoring an established Church for the real Jews of America, and his Hebrew Bible Ministry is expanding all over the world and waking up his people (Hosea chapter 4:6)!

THE END

Written by Ezra Ben Israel

WE ARE THE TRUE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL!

CHONJUFU THE LEGENDARY AFRICAN PIRATE

By History Professor Dr. Franklyn V. Beckles, Jr.

In the 1600’s, African slavery by White Europeans was at its height. The Roman Empire morphed into colonies of Caucasian separatists around Europe and the Americas. The White colonialists established an imperial system of racism and white supremacy to fund European explorers like Christopher Columbus to travel around the world and bribed indigenous African Hebrew tribes (who were the biblical lost Tribes of Israel) to war against each other over the false religions imposed upon them like “Christianity” & “Islam” by White Missionaries (Deuteronomy chapter 28). After the tribal warriors destroyed each other, the Europeans would simply invade and enslave the people. Upon discovering this trend, a noble King named Chonjufu of the tribe of Benjamin, and Israelite from the Diaspora out of the holy city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., was the supreme ruler of an African nation in Timbuktu. King Chonjufu realized, that in order to save his kingdom, he would have to form alliances with his kinsmen and devise a daring plan to stop the European conquest against his beloved people. His plan was to attack the White invaders at the source of their invasion which was at the Atlantic Ocean –by ships! King Chonjufu teamed up with neighboring tribal Kings like Mandingo and Shakanda who were his brothers, and with the combined strength of their armies they staged a trap for the European slave traders. They sent word by messenger to the bastard Queen Isabella of Portugal (who was secretly working with the Roman Catholic Church to enslave the Negroes –the true children of God). Chonjufu’s spy informed Isabella to send ships for the many African Jews that have been captured for enslavement. So the bitch sent Captain Ferdinand Ortega and his men with a fleet of ships. When the White traders finally arrived in Timbuktu, they were quickly subdued and taken as prisoners of war. King Chonjufu appointed one of his sons, Prince Mali to rule his mighty empire in his absence, while he and his brother Shakanda commandeered Ortega’s large fleet of wine, treasures, and spices stolen from the African tribes in North Africa. King Chonjufu immediately assumed command and possession of the expensive cargo, and filled the ships will his mightiest warriors! Impressed with his new navy of ships, he hatched a plan to utilize Captain Ortega’s exploration maps and ship records that revealed the plot of the colonialists to destroy his people, to chart the sea routes of all the European slave ships to catch them off guard and raid them! His plan was working and led into a crusade mission to free his people from slave traders each time they would attack an Imperialist merchant ship with them on board! Soon Captain Chonjufu began raiding more and more merchant ships all over the coast of West Africa unto the Caribbean islands where his robbed and sank many ships from Portugal and Spain after freeing the slaves and taking them on board his ships. Captain Chonjufu also killed many slave traders while freeing slaves and took back the African treasures that were stolen from his homeland. In time, incredible stories about an Israelite African King that became a notorious pirate that stole from the rich European aristocrats and freed God’s chosen people (Book of Psalms 83 and 137)! The rising fame of the pirate Captain Chonjufu, enraged the witch Isabella, who decided to hire the infamous pirate named Edward Teach, who was known as “Black Beard”! His mission was to sail into the isles of the Caribbean to track down and assassinate the noble King. Meanwhile the God of Israel warned Captain Chonjufu of his nemesis in a vision, and anticipated and prepared for the incoming attacks at sea from his enemies. Nevertheless, the King successfully kept robbing European ships and freeing more and more slaves. Finally, Chonjufu’s greatest accomplishments were fulfilled when he and his crew faced off in battle against Black Beard and his pirate ship. In ship to ship combat, Chonjufu and his warrior crew fought valiantly, killed Black Beard, and sank his beloved ship near the island of Trinidad & Tobago! Later Captain Chonjufu, sailed to North America to Virginia to attack an unsuspecting colony stationed in Roanoke, where he received word that their where many Jewish and Native American slaves there. Once the mighty hunter arrived with his men they disembarked on the land and invaded the European occupation at Roanoke, Virginia. At the hidden colony, White colonialists had enslaved the native people of Hebrew Indians of the tribe of Gad, and the White savages had killed the men, and raped the women and enslaved the children! To rescue his people, King Chonjufu and his warrior tribe killed all of the European at the Virginian colony! Black Beard defeat and the battle of Roanoke, set shockwaves around the new world and humiliated the White European monarchy, so much so that Queen Isabella was killed and the White colonialists all agreed to cover up the massacre of the lost colony of Roanoke, Virginia. The Europeans began spreading lies that the colonists at Roanoke simply disappeared without a trace and that their disappearance was a mystery. Eventually, the daring raids of Chonjufu at sea slowed down the transatlantic slave trade. But unfortunately, it didn’t stop it. The fearless pirate King Chonjufu was unstoppable and undefeated, and he became a legend and highly revered amongst his people. During his life as a pirate, King Chonjufu freed thousands of slaves, more than anyone of his time, gained great wealth that he cleverly used to finance his African empire, and sunk hundreds of White European ships. In time, the mighty King Chonjufu returned to his homeland and resumed his rulership in Timbuktu, with his faithful sons by his side and faded into history, but was never captured by the Europeans! During his reign, King Chonjufu successfully kept his empire from European colonialism, and when he died, he was honored all over Africa as the greatest Hebrew Israelite King of Africa and pirate that the world has ever known, and documented in the pages of Black History as a courageous man who became an outlaw and risked his life to free his people from the tyranny of slavery!

THE END

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER: REV. FRANKLYN V. BECKLES, SR.

AND MY BELOVED WIFE AND CHILDREN!!!

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What Cities Are Run By Republicans

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What Cities Are Run By Republicans

Democrats Outnumber Gop Voters About 6 To 1 But Republican Candidates Think People Will Cross Party Lines Over Recent Crime Wave

New York City GOP mayoral candidates Curtis Sliwa, left, and Fernando Mateo have sparred over their qualifications and past missteps.

Two longtime New York City fixtures are enmeshed in a hotly contested primary fight for the Republican nomination in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat.

A poll released last week by WPIX-Channel 11, NewsNation and Emerson College showed Curtis Sliwa, founder of the crime-prevention group Guardian Angels, ahead of Fernando Mateo, a politically connected entrepreneur and longtime advocate for taxi drivers and bodega owners, by 33% to 27%, with 40% of those Republican registered voters who were polled still undecided.

Despite its closeness, the June 22 Republican primary between the former friends turned foes hasn’t garnered much public attention. Democratic voters outnumber Republicans citywide by more than 6 to 1.

The lack of competitiveness in political races over the past decade spurred a voter-outreach effort earlier this year to get Republican and independent voters to re-enroll as Democrats so they can have a say in the . During the outreach, Democrats saw a net gain of nearly 12,000 registered voters, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

Still, both Republicans insist they can win the general election. They said they think enough voters—especially moderate Democrats—will vote across party lines because of the crime surge that has plagued the city since the Covid-19 pandemic struck last year.

Trump Keeps Claiming That The Most Dangerous Cities In America Are All Run By Democrats They Arent

With the economy hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic and protesters in the streets targeting America’s systemic racism, President Trump has been forced to revise his reelection strategy. What was once going to be a triumphal declaration of his effectiveness at keeping the economy afloat has been reworked as a reiteration of his 2016 run: a focus on making America great and, more specifically, on law and order.

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Over and over, Trump has shared that terse phrase with his tens of millions of Twitter followers, including on Wednesday and Thursday. And over and over, he has tried to imply that Democrats broadly and former vice president Joe Biden specifically are soft on crime. That his likely general election opponent and other leaders in the Democratic Party are happy to have social structures collapse into anarchy for some unclear reason.

To make that case, Trump has repeatedly lifted up a statistical factoid, as he did during an event at the White House on Wednesday.

“You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other — other cities, all Democrat run,” he said. “Every one of them is Democrat run. Twenty out of 20. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat run.”

It’s not clear how Trump is defining “most dangerous” in this context. So let’s look at two related sets of data compiled by the FBI: most violent crime and most violent crime per capita.

Well, reader, I have a surprise for you.

Opinionhow Can Democrats Fight The Gop Power Grab On Congressional Seats You Won’t Like It

Facing mounting pressure from within the party, Senate Democrats finally hinted Tuesday that an emboldened Schumer may bring the For the People Act back for a second attempt at passage. But with no hope of GOP support for any voting or redistricting reforms and Republicans Senate numbers strong enough to require any vote to cross the 60-vote filibuster threshold, Schumer’s effort will almost certainly fail.

Senate Democrats are running out of time to protect America’s blue cities, and the cost of inaction could be a permanent Democratic minority in the House. Without resorting to nuclear filibuster reform tactics, Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be presiding over a devastating loss of Democrats’ most reliable electoral fortresses.

Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on Twitter @themaxburns.

Rand Pauls Claim That Cities And States Led By Democrats Have The Worst Income Inequality

“We ought to look where income inequality seems to be the worst. It seems to be worst in cities run by Democrats, governors of states run by Democrats and countries currently run by Democrats. So the thing is, let’s look for root causes.”

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— Sen. Rand Paul , Republican debate on Fox Business News, Nov. 10, 2015

Several readers wanted to know whether this statement was true. We looked into a portion of the statement for our debate roundup and determined that the claim lacked context, although the data supported his claim about Democrat-led cities. There was more to explore here, so we decided to dig further. How accurate is Paul’s claim?

Essential Politics: Democrats Scramble To Combat Rising Homicide Rates In American Cities

David Lauter

This is the June 25, 2021, edition of the Essential Politics newsletter. Like what you’re reading? to get it in your inbox three times a week.

A rise in violent crime in the nation’s cities poses a threat to the Democratic Party that little else could rival; finding a way to address the problem has posed difficult challenges for the party’s leaders.

Over the last two decades, America’s politics has divided more and more along lines of city versus countryside. Democrats built an urban-based coalition that unites progressive whites — mostly young and college-educated — with a Black and Latino voter base that’s more often working class.

That happened only after years of sharp declines in crime opened the way for the transformation of urban neighborhoods from Crown Heights in Brooklyn to Silver Lake in Los Angeles.

Just as white flight from cities helped power the Republican rise from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, the urban resurgence of the last 20 years, despite all the attendant problems of gentrification, helped make possible the coalitions that elected Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Rising crime acts like kryptonite on such coalitions, sapping their strength and laying bare their flaws.

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The latest news, analysis and insights from our politics teams from Sacramento to D.C.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Rising Violent Crime Is Likely To Present A Political Challenge For Democrats In 2022

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President Biden hosts a White House meeting about reducing gun violence on July 12. Violent crime is on the rise in many U.S. urban areas, and Democratic political strategists believe the White House needs to take on the issue of crime directly.

Violent crime is on the rise in urban areas across the country.

Many small cities that typically have relatively few murders are seeing significant increases over last year. Killings in Albuquerque, N.M., Austin, Texas, and Pittsburgh, for example, have about doubled so far in 2021, while Portland, Ore., has had five times as many murders compared to last year, according to data compiled by Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.

Most cities in the United States, including each of those named above, have a Democratic mayor. After protests last year over police violence against Black Americans — notably the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis — there has been a push from the left to “defund” police departments.

As a result, several cities, including Austin and New York, have reduced or reallocated police budgets — though some cities have looked to restore funding in recent months.

That debate over funding, coupled with the rise in crime, has given Republicans what they believe is an opening in key swing districts that could decide control of the U.S. House next year. The GOP needs to pick up just a net of five seats to do so.

List Of Rioted Cities And Their Political Affiliation Wait Until You See These Stats

List of cities where riots, looting & violence were reported, their mayors, governors and their political affiliation.

Which cites are burning, and what political party runs them? Check out the list below.

I’m just here to state some facts. I am not getting into the whole debate about racism, George Floyd, or anything other than the cities the violent riots and looting are taking place in. We’ve all watched the videos of rioters looting, smashing windows, burning buildings, assaulting police, assaulting private individuals and a whole slew of other horrendous things. I do have some questions though; In many of these cities, the police are being told to ‘stand down’; WHY? .. In some cities, the mayors are even encouraging the riots. WHY? .. Why have some cities called in the nation Guard, but have NOT given them the GO signal? Why are locals in each rioted city telling us that most of the people doing the damage are out-of-towners? Where are they coming from? Who’s bringing them in? Are they being paid? … Lot’s of unanswered questions here folks. Feel free to comment below.

The list contains 29 cities; of which 26 have Democrat Mayors and 3 have Republican Mayors. The # of states may look skewed because some states are listed more than once , but there’s no doubt that even the Democratic run states out number Republican ones. Check out the list below, and don’t forget to Comment.

The Top 10 Cities For Mass Shootings: All Of Them Are Run By The Democratic Party

Tuesday, March 30, 2021 By Stillness in the Storm

The American news media reports every “mass shooting” that fits its political narrative. But a check of the statistics for mass shootings shows that overwhelming majority are committed in Democrat-run cities, including those with strict gun control laws and “gun-free zones.”

The number of mass shootings in the last three years is mind-boggling. There was a total of 424 in 2019; 612 in 2020; and 105 so far in 2021. A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which four or more subjects are shot by a firearm.

The following are the top cities for mass shootings, according to a verifiable database called Mass Shootings Info.

Image Credit: Mass-shootings-info

The top cities for mass shootings: Chicago ; Philadelphia ; New York City ; Houston ; and Baltimore These cities are all run by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party’s “solution” to the surging crime in America’s cities is to blame the police or to outright defund them. It is only fueling a crime surge that is reversing decades of overall decreasing violent crime.

The following Democrat-run cities are now seeing massive spikes in violence, including mass shootings.

Did Record Gun Sales Cause A Spike In Gun Crime Researchers Say It’s Complicated

“Democrats across the country spent the last year defunding police departments, so they shouldn’t be surprised when voters hold them responsible for the spike in violent crime,” said Mike Berg, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which recruits and advises GOP congressional candidates.

Republicans are already going after Democrats with a three-pronged strategy that includes attacks on crime; the economy, particularly rising inflation and labor shortages; and border security.

Meet The Republicans Representing Cities With A Higher Murder Rate Than Chicago

5 years old

As Democrats escalate calls for tougher gun laws, conservative House members offer pushback but few alternatives to gun control laws

Tue 12 Jul 2016 11.45 BST Last modified on Wed 26 Feb 2020 18.01 GMT

In the wake of a sniper attack on Dallas law enforcement officers that left five officers dead and nine wounded, House Democrats have continued to push for a vote on gun control legislation before the congressional session ends on Friday.

“If this Congress does not have the guts to lead, then we are responsible for all of the bloodshed of the streets of America, whether it be at the hands of the people wearing a uniform or whether it’s at the hands of criminals,” Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond, who represents parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, said on Friday.

House Republicans are refusing to allow an up or down vote on Democrats’ gun control bills, including a bill to expand background checks on gun sales, which some researchers believe could help reduce urban gun violence. At least 11 House Republicans represent large cities with murder rates even higher than Chicago’s. All of them have A ratings from the National Rifle Association, earned from a record of supporting gun rights and opposing gun control.

A few of these representatives offered alternatives to gun control that they believe will do more to reduce gun violence: better re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated Americans, job creation or improvements to the mental health system.

Eric Holder: There Is Still A Fight For Democrats Against Gop Gerrymandering

In McConnell’s Kentucky, for instance, Republicans are divided over how far to go during the upcoming redistricting process, which they control in the deep-red state. The more extreme wing wants to crack the Democratic stronghold of Louisville, currently represented by Rep. John Yarmuth. More cautious Republicans like McConnell are willing to settle for smaller changes that reduce Democratic margins while stuffing more Republican voters into hotly contested swing districts.

Make no mistake: McConnell’s caution isn’t rooted in any newfound respect for the integrity of our electoral process. Instead, Republicans are mainly worried about avoiding the costly and embarrassing court decisions that invalidated their most extreme overreaches and potentially turn the line-drawing over to the courts. So McConnell’s approach doesn’t reject partisan gerrymandering — it just avoids the type of high-profile city-cracking that could land the Kentucky GOP in federal court.

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For instance, in 2020, Yarmuth won his Louisville district with a comfortable 62.7 percent of the vote. By turning Yarmuth’s single district into portions of two or three new districts, Republicans could turn his safe blue seat into swing districts and safe Republican strongholds. But the naked politicking of that kind of move would invite dozens of court challenges from outraged Democrats and election integrity organizations, tying up GOP time and treasure in the middle of campaign season.

Yet relying on the Republican-aligned Supreme Court to find a remedy is a gamble that could just as easily backfire on Democrats. In the 2019 case Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservative majority ruled 5-4 that Congress, not the federal courts, must address partisan gerrymandering. As a result, half a dozen Democrat-filed federal cases were tossed out and the gerrymandered district maps allowed to stand. More outcomes like that would be catastrophic both for Democrats and democracy.

For now, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fighting back against Republican efforts in a flurry of high-profile lawsuits. The organization, chaired by former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., has said it is committed to countering the Republican plan to split up blue cities.

Hope For Normalcy Is Growing Here’s What Americans Are Still Worried About

He continuously reiterated a version of that response as he faced pressure from the left and criticism from conservatives. Biden won, despite accusations from the right that he was merely a Trojan Horse for progressives and a socialist, police-defunding agenda.

But crime continues to be a nagging issue for Biden. He gets high marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic — undoubtedly the top issue of concern when he took office six months ago. But crime is rising in importance for many Americans, and they’re split on his handling of it.

That has led the White House to make a show of doing something about the issue, despite the decentralization of police departments across the country, which are controlled at the municipal level.

“It seems like most of my career I’ve been dealing with this issue,” Biden said earlier this month while convening a meeting of law enforcement and local officials. “While there’s no ‘one-size-fit-all’ approach, we know there are some things that work, and the first of those that work is stemming the flow of firearms used to commit violent crimes.”

Biden and crime have gone back decades. During the 2020 presidential primary, he had to fend off criticism from the left for writing the 1990s-era crime bill. Violent crime then was at a high, but critics have said the bill helped lead to the mass incarceration of many Black men, and often not for violent crime.

Elleithee echoed that.

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When It Comes To Big City Elections Republicans Are In The Wilderness

The party’s growing irrelevance in urban and suburban areas comes at a considerable cost, sidelining conservatives in centers of innovation and economic might.

When Jerry Sanders finished his second term as mayor of San Diego in 2012, he was the most prominent Republican city executive in the country. A former police chief close to the business community, Mr. Sanders appeared to be a political role model for other would-be Republican mayors, a moderate who worked with the Obama administration on urban policy and endorsed gay marriage at a pivotal moment.

These days, Mr. Sanders said, Republicans are out of touch with diverse metropolitan areas. He said Republicans appeared to lack “real solutions” to issues like crime, and lamented the party’s exclusionary message that drives off young people, Hispanics and gay voters in cities like his.

“I don’t think the right has kept up with the times,’’ Mr. Sanders, 70, said in an interview. He said he renounced his party affiliation on Jan. 7, the day after the mob attack on the Capitol.

Across the political map this year, Mr. Sanders’s diagnosis of his former party appears indisputable: In off-year elections from Mr. Sanders’s California to New York City and New Jersey and the increasingly blue state of Virginia with its crucial suburbs of Washington, D.C., the Republican Party’s feeble appeal to the country’s big cities and dense suburbs is on vivid display.

“They go back to that stuff, I’m in trouble,” he said with a laugh.

Rogue City Leaders: How Republicans Are Taking Power Away From Mayors

State lawmakers are preempting the ability of city leaders to enforce their own regulations. The moves represent a sharp ideological shift for a party that has long championed local control.

Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey arrives for a news conference to talk about the latest Arizona COVID-19 information in Phoenix on Dec. 2, 2020. | Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo

06/23/2021 04:30 AM EDT

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Mayors and city councils across Arizona issued face mask mandates during the pandemic to prevent the spread of Covid-19, angering conservative state lawmakers who decried government overreach. So the legislators turned to the newest Republican playbook and passed a law allowing businesses to ignore those public health requirements.

The one-line “preemption” law signed in April by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who refused to issue a statewide mask order, won’t make much of an immediate difference now. It doesn’t go into effect until later this year, and local officials have lifted mask mandates in compliance with CDC guidelines as the threat of the virus subsides.

But the bill’s main sponsor says it was needed to ensure “rogue city leaders” can’t impose mask mandates again, should another outbreak occur.

An usher holds a sign to remind fans to wear masks during a spring training baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Arizona Diamondbacks in Scottdale, Ariz. | Ashley Landis/AP Photo

Is There Currently Riots/looting *only* In Democrat Cities In The Usa

So pathetic to watch the Fake News Lamestream Media playing down the gravity and depravity of the Radical Left, looters and thugs, ripping up our Liberal Democrat run cities. It is almost like they are all working together?

Not being an American, I am unsure what “Liberal Democrat run cities” are. I will guess those having a Democrat mayor, but am willing to be corrected.

Irrespective of your politics and whether you call them protests or riots, are there currently “large street gatherings”only in Democrat run cities?

Mawg says reinstate Monica

No.

Cities are generally democrat-leaning – 35 with democratic mayors vs 13 republican in the 50 largest cities.

But cities with republican mayors also had protests which resulted in property damage. An incomplete list of examples:

List Of Current Mayors Of The Top 100 Cities In The United States

Municipal partisanship in 2021

This page lists the current mayors of the 100 largest U.S. cities by population.

As of 2013, an estimated 62,186,079 citizens lived in these cities, accounting for 19.67 percent of the nation’s total population.

In most of the nation’s largest cities, mayoral elections are officially nonpartisan, though many officeholders and candidates are affiliated with political parties. Ballotpedia used one or more of the following sources to identify each officeholder’s partisan affiliation: direct communication from the officeholder, current or previous candidacy for partisan office, or identification of partisan affiliation by multiple media outlets. As of August 2021, the partisan breakdown of the mayors of the 100 largest U.S. cities was 63 Democrats, 26 Republicans, four independents, and six nonpartisans. The affiliation of one mayor was unknown.

Of these cities, there are 47 strong mayor governments, 46 council-manager governments, six hybrid governments, and one city commission.

At the start of 2021…

HIGHLIGHTS

Based on 2013 population estimates, 76% of the population of the top 100 cities lived in cities with Democratic mayors, and 15% lived in cities with Republican mayors.

Allen Joines , mayor of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had been in office the longest; he first took office in 2001.

This page includes:

Select a topic from the dropdown below to learn more.Submit

100 Largest Cities By Population Rank Strong mayor No

The Ten Most Dangerous Cities In The Us Are All Run By Democrats

United States

Aug 28, 2020 3:16:00 PM

While the cities with the highest crimes have Democrat mayors, studies show little correlation between party affiliations and crime.

During the 2020 presidential election race, President Donald Trump has claimed on multiple occasions that Democrats run the most dangerous cities in the U.S.

Preliminary data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report covering the first half of 2019 shows the ten cities with the highest overall violent crimes in decreasing order are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Memphis, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, and Baltimore. Based on the number of crimes per 10,000 residents, the top ten cities are Memphis , St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Springfield, Little Rock., Stockton , Cleveland, St. Bernardino, and Oakland . All the mayors of the cities with the highest overall violent crimes are Democrats. The cities with the most violent crime per capita have Democrat mayors except Springfield, which has an independent mayor.

Hence equating surging crime rates with certain party affiliations in cities does not count as a realistic picture of the reasons why certain cities have high crime rates, thus making this claim misleading.

Reference links

Map: Republicans To Have Full Control Of 23 States Democrats 15

In 2021, Republicans will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 23 states. Democrats will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 15 states.

Population of the 24 fully R-controlled states: 134,035,267Population of the 15 fully D-controlled states: 120,326,393

Republicans have full control of the legislative branch in 30 states. Democrats have full control of the legislative branch in 18 states.

Population of the 30 fully R-controlled legislature states: 185,164,412Population of the 18 fully D-controlled legislature states: 133,888,565

This week, Andrew Cuomo’s star went down in flames. While the smoke clears, let’s take a moment to sit back and reminisce about the governor’s long history with ethical and legal violations.

Cuomo’s controversies regarding sexual harassment and nursing homes deaths were far from his first abuses of power. In fact, his administration has a long history of it, ranging from interfering with ethics commissions, to financial corruption.

In July 2013, Cuomo formed the Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in New York’s government. At first it was a success, giving Cuomo good PR. Yet as it went on there were rumors that, contrary to his claim that “Anything they want to look at they can look at,” Cuomo was interfering with the Commission’s investigations. There was friction within the Commission, itself with two factions forming: “’Team Independence’ and ‘Team We-Have-a-Boss’.”

Three Democrats Three Republicans Advance In City Council Race

Hannah Manley hands her ballot to election judge Joann Vioda during Tuesday’s primary election at Southview Baptist Church.

Margaret Reist

The three incumbents on the Lincoln City Council, two Republicans new to politics and a Democrat on the city-county planning commission advanced to the general election Tuesday night, narrowing a crowded race.

Twelve candidates vied for three at-large City Council seats — the largest field of candidates in 16 years, which included a host of newcomers to politics.

Tom Beckius

Mary Hilton

Three of those newcomers will advance: Tom Beckius, a Democrat who works in real estate and construction and serves on the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission; Mary Hilton, a Republican and issues advocate; and Eric Burling, a Republican and software engineer running a study-abroad company.

Lincoln City Councilman Roy Christensen

Sändra Washington

The three incumbents who advanced: Roy Christensen, a Republican and audiologist seeking his third term; Bennie Shobe, a Democrat and program analyst at the Nebraska Department of Labor seeking his second term; and Sändra Washington, a Democrat and retired National Parks Service employee who was appointed after Leirion Gaylor Baird became mayor in 2019.

The top three vote-getters were the incumbents, with Democrats Washington and Shobe taking the top spots.

Washington said she’s very pleased, especially since this is her first campaign.

Beckius said he was thrilled to have such a strong turnout.

List Of Mayors Of The 50 Largest Cities In The United States

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This is a list of mayors of the 50 largest cities in the United States, are ordered the estimated populations as of July 1, 2017. These 50 cities have a combined population of 49.6 million, or 15% of the national population. Louisville, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Nashville, and Honolulu have consolidated city-county governments where the mayor is elected by residents of the entire county not just that of the main city; in these cases the population and respective rank are for the county.

In some states, mayors are officially elected on a nonpartisan basis; however, their party affiliation or preference is generally known, and where it is known it is shown in the list below.

The breakdown of mayoral political parties is 36 Democrats, 11 Republicans, and 3 Independents .

Party Affiliation Of The Mayors Of The 100 Largest Cities

Municipal partisanship in 2021

In most of the nation’s largest cities, mayoral elections are officially nonpartisan. However, many officeholders are affiliated with political parties. Ballotpedia uses one or more of the following sources to identify each officeholder’s partisan affiliation: direct communication from the officeholder, current or previous candidacy for partisan office, or identification of partisan affiliation by multiple media outlets.

Democratic mayors oversaw 64 of the 100 largest cities at the beginning of 2021, 64 at the beginning of 2020, 61 at the start of 2019, 63 at the start of 2018, 64 at the beginning of 2017, and 67 at the start of 2016.

This page includes:

Who runs the cities?: A chart tracking mayors by party affiliation.

List of mayors: A list of mayors of the 100 largest cities.

Mayoral partisanship: 2016-2021: A chart showing the partisan breakdown of mayors from 2016 to 2021.

History of local nonpartisanship: A look at the history and debate surrounding local nonpartisan elections.

Mayoral partisanship and preemption conflicts: An overview of preemption conflicts between state and local governments.

The following pages track municipal partisanship by year:

See also: Partisanship in United States municipal elections

As of August 2021, the mayors of 63 of the country’s 100 largest cities are affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Americas Top 20 Cities For Crime And What Party Runs Them

President Donald Trump cites Detroit as one of the high-crime cities run by Democrats. Pictured: A Detroit police officer uses tear gas during a May 29 protest over the death four days earlier of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Annoyed that Senate Democrats are blocking a police reform bill, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the 20 U.S. cities with the highest crime rates are all run by Democrats.

“The Senate Republicans want very much to pass a bill on police reform,” Trump said during a Rose Garden press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “I would like to see it happen. We won’t sacrifice. We won’t do that. We won’t do anything that is going to hurt our police.”

The president added:

We have a record positive rating on crime, a record positive rating on crime this year. The best. You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other cities, all Democrat-run. Every one of them is Democrat-run. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat-run.

A quick fact check shows that Trump is at least mostly correct. One ranking says the top 20 most dangerous cities are run by 18 Democrat mayors and two mayors who were elected in nonpartisan races.

According to the website Neighborhood Scout, which in January published a list of the 100 most dangerous cities in America, heavily Democrat Detroit tops the list. At No. 20 is Chester, Pennsylvania, also with a Democrat mayor.

Homicides Are Up But Gop Misleads With Claims About Blame

Some police organizations and Republican politicians are blaming Democrats and last year’s defund the police effort for a troubling rise in homicides in many cities across the country

Senate Republicans set to block Jan. 6 commission bill

WASHINGTON — “SKYROCKETING MURDER RATES,” claimed the National Fraternal Order of Police. “An explosion of violent crime,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Democrat-run cities across the country who cut funding for police have seen increases in crime,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

On social media and in political speeches, some Republicans and pro-police groups say last year’s calls to slash spending on law enforcement have led to a dramatic rise in killings in cities overseen by Democrats.

The increases they cite are real, and several big cities did make cuts to police spending. But the reductions were mostly modest, and the same big increases in homicides are being seen nationwide — even in cities that increased police spending. At the same time, the rates for burglaries, drug offenses and many other types of crime are down in many cities across the country.

The effort to blame Democrats for crime may offer a preview of Republicans’ strategy for upcoming elections: a new twist on an old “law and order” argument from the party’s past, harkening back to President Richard Nixon.

Top Republicans have taken up the claim, too.

Yet homicide rates are also increasing in cities that didn’t cut spending.

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