Israel's Netanyahu defiant in the face of American, world criticism

Israel's Netanyahu defiant in the face of American, world criticism

Blacks and Latinos not out of the woods yet on health care

Moments after House passage of the landmark health care reform bill, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele and House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner loudly sounded the war drums. Both pointed out three obvious and ominous facts, the bill passed by the narrowest of narrow margins, and that Americans are as deeply divided as ever on health care reform, or even whether there should be health care reform. The third point both made is the most ominous. They vowed to fight hard to repeal the law. They bank on a swell of public anger to punish the Democrats by plunging their numbers in the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. This political Armageddon scenario would be a disaster for the Democrats. It would be a catastrophe for blacks and Latinos.

Under the reform law, the promise is that more than 30 million uninsured will get coverage. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that blacks and Hispanics make up nearly half of the uninsured. But widely expanded coverage is as yet the promise, and that promise is still, even if the GOP saber rattle against the law turns out to be just so much hot air, years down the line. There's much fine devil in the language of the law that needs to be worked through before that promise is totally fulfilled.

In the meantime, millions of middle-class, and especially poor, minorities, still must watch and wait for coverage to begin. There's no wait on the crisis that many blacks and Latino uninsured face. They are far more likely than the one in four whites, who are uninsured to experience problems getting treatment at a hospital or clinic. This has devastating health and public policy consequences. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies minority uninsured are far more likely than whites to suffer higher rates of catastrophic illness and disease, and are much less likely to obtain basic drugs, tests, preventive screenings and surgeries. They are more likely to recover slower from illness, and they die much younger.

Studies have found that when blacks and Hispanics do receive treatment, the care they receive is more likely to be substandard than that of whites. Reports indicate that even when blacks and Hispanics are enrolled in high quality health plans, the racial gap in the care and quality of medical treatment still remains low. 
 Private insurers routinely cherry pick the healthiest and most financially secure patients in order to bloat profits and hold down costs. American medical providers spend twice as much per patient than providers in countries with universal health care, and they provide lower quality for the grossly inflated dollars. Patients pay more in higher insurance premiums, co-payments, fees and other hidden health costs. At the same time, government medical insurance programs shell out more than public insurers in other countries with universal health care. 



Blacks and Hispanics have far greater incidences of all major medical ailments than whites. Even when they can pay for medical coverage, they can be excluded from coverage if afflicted with these medical maladies. The health care reform law addresses this frontally and forbids private insurers from barring anyone with preexisting conditions. The problem with this is that while the language of the law clearly spells out the prohibition, much depends on how aggressively government agencies monitor and enforce penalties on private insurers who refuse to cover, or find endless dodges and subterfuges to weasel out of covering, those with major illnesses.

The "public option" was, of course, excised from the law. But that was really the only near fail safe government check and balance that might have guaranteed coverage and treatment for the uninsured and those labeled as high risk. The compromise alternative "is that the uninsured can turn to a vague and unproven system of loosely regulated, nonprofit health care co-operatives, and state run exchanges to find the best deal on coverage.

In decades past, the health care industry successfully gutted every proposal for expanded health care. It couched its attack by posing as the noble public-spirited guardian of the nation's health and pocketbook and argued that government intervention in health care was too costly, inefficient and entailed too much heavy-handed government control and interference. That argument didn't totally fly this time around. And we now have the long needed health care reform law. But there's still much to do to put the law fully into play, not to mention overcoming the still formidable political opposition to it. In other words, blacks and Latinos who suffered the greatest and longest from access to affordable quality health care are still not out of the woods yet.

Despite row, U.S. and Israel sign massive arms deal

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel's defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal.

According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, is worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million.

The aircrafts were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs, and include a large number of systems produced by Israel's defense industry.
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The deal will be covered by American foreign assistance funds. The Pentagon will issue a formal announcement on the matter on Thursday evening.

America and Israel have still not reached an agreement regarding the purchase of the Lockheed F-35 war plane. It is still not clear when that deal, which is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, will finally be sealed and carried out.

If that deal is signed in the near future, Israel will likely receive its first F-35 in 2014.

Radio personality threatened after Farrakhan appearance

Radio personality threatened after Farrakhan appearance

War, Racism and the Empire of Poverty

At a time of such great international turmoil economically and politically, it is increasingly important to identify and understand the social dynamics of crisis. A global social crisis has long preceded the economic crisis, and has only been exacerbated by it. The great shame of human civilization is the fact that over half of it lives in abysmal poverty.



Poverty is not simply a matter of ‘bad luck’; it is a result of socio-political-economic factors that allow for very few people in the world to control so much wealth and so many resources, while so many are left with so little. The capitalist world system was built upon war, race, and empire. Malcolm X once declared, “You can’t have capitalism without racism.”



The global political economy is a system that enriches the very few at the expense of the vast majority. This exploitation is organized through imperialism, war, and the social construction of race. It is vitally important to address the relationship between war, poverty and race in the context of the current global economic crisis. Western nations have plundered the rest of the world for centuries, and now the great empire is hitting home. What is done abroad comes home to roost.



The Social Construction of ‘Race’



500 years ago, the world was going through massive transformations, as the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British colonized the ‘New World’ and in time, a new system of ‘Capitalism’ and ‘nation states’ began to emerge. The world was in a great period of transition and systemic change in which it was the Europeans that emerged as the dominant world powers. The colonies in the Americas required a massive labour force, “Between 1607 and 1783, more than 350,000 ‘white’ bond-labourers arrived in the British colonies.”[1]



The Americas had both un-free blacks and whites, with blacks being a minority, yet they “exercised basic rights in law.”[2] Problems arrived in the form of elites trying to control the labour class. Slaves were made up of Indian, black and white labourers; yet, problems arose with this “mixed” population of un-free labour. The problem with Indian labourers was that they knew the land and could escape to “undiscovered” territory, and enslavement would often instigate rebellions and war:



The social costs of trying to discipline un-free native labour had proved too high. Natives would eventually be genocidally eliminated, once population settlement and military power made victory more or less certain; for the time being, however, different sources of bond labour had to be found.[3]



Between 1607 and 1682, more than 90,000 European immigrants, “three-quarters of them chattel bond-labourers, were brought to Virginia and Maryland.” Following the “establishment of the Royal African Company in 1672, a steady supply of African slaves was secured.” Problems became paramount, however, as the lower classes tended to be very rebellious, which consisted of “an amalgam of indentured servants and slaves, of poor whites and blacks, of landless freemen and debtors.” The lower classes were united in opposition to the elites oppressing them, regardless of background.[4]



Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 was of particular note, as bond-labourers, black and white, rebelled against the local elites and “demanded freedom from chattel servitude.” For the colonialists, “Such images of a joint uprising of black and white, slave and bondsman, proved traumatic. In the face of a united rebellion of the lower orders, the planter bourgeoisie understood that their entire system of colonial exploitation and privilege was at risk.”[5]



In response to this threat, the landed elite “relaxed the servitude of white labourers, intensified the bonds of black slavery, and introduced a new regime of racial oppression. In doing so, they effectively created the white race – and with it white supremacy.”[6] Thus, “the conditions of white and black servants began to diverge considerably after 1660.” Following this, legislation would separate white and black slavery, prevent “mixed” marriages, and seek to prevent the procreation of “mixed-race” children. Whereas before 1660, many black slaves were not indentured for life, this changed as colonial law increasingly “imposed lifetime bondage for black servants – and, especially significant, the curse of lifetime servitude for their offspring.”[7]



A central feature of the social construction of this racial divide was “the denial of the right to vote,” as most Anglo-American colonies previously allowed free blacks to vote, but this slowly changed throughout the colonies. The ruling class of America was essentially “inventing race.” Thus, “Freedom was increasingly identified with race, not class.”[8]



It is out of this that ideas of race and later, ‘race science’ emerged, as eugenics became the dominant ideology of western elites, trying to scientifically ‘prove’ the superiority of ‘whites’ and the ‘inferiority’ of ‘blacks’. This would carry a dual nature of justifying white domination, as well as providing both a justification for and excuse to oppress black people, and in fact, people of all ‘races’. This was especially clear as in the late 1800s and early 1900s the European empires undertook the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in which they colonized the entire continent (save Ethiopia). It was largely justified as a ‘civilizing’ mission; yet, it was fundamentally about gaining access to Africa’s vast resources.



Following World War II, global power rested predominantly in America, the leading hegemon, expanding the economic interests of North America and Western Europe around the world. War, empire, and racism have been central features of this expansion. In large part, poverty has been the result. Now, the empire hits home.



Global Labour



The world has almost 6.8 billion people, half of them female. The world economy has a labour force of 3.184 billion people; of all people employed in the world, 40% are women. While the world is equally male and female, 1.8 billion men are employed, compared to 1.2 billion women. The population of people in low paying jobs, long hours, and part-time work are predominantly women.[9]



Global Poverty and Wealth



In 1999, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported that, “Although 200 million people saw their incomes fall between 1965 and 1980, more than 1 billion people experienced a drop from 1980 to 1993.” In 1996, “100 countries were worse off than 15 years [prior].” In the late 1960s, “the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times (up from 61 times since 1996).” As of 1998, “3 billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.”[10]



Elites and academics, as well as major social movements in western nations focus on population growth as being the driver in global poverty, picking up from where the Malthusians left off; poverty becomes the problem caused by “population growth” as opposed to a problem caused by wealth and resource distribution. In 2003, a World Bank report revealed that, “A minority of the world's population (17%) consume most of the world's resources (80%), leaving almost 5 billion people to live on the remaining 20%. As a result, billions of people are living without the very basic necessities of life - food, water, housing and sanitation.” Further:



1.2 billion (20%) of the world population now lives on less that $1/day, another 1.8 billion (30%) lives on less than $2/day, 800 million go to bed hungry every day, and 30,000 - 60,000 die each day from hunger alone. The story is the same, when it comes to other necessities like water, housing, education etc. On the flip side, we have increasing accumulation of wealth and power, where the world's 500 or so billionaires have assets of 1.9 trillion dollars, a sum greater than the income of the poorest 170 countries in the world.[11]



Other figures from the World Bank report include the fact that, “The world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people,” and “The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world's countries) is less than the wealth of the world's three richest people combined.” Incredibly, “A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people.”[12]



In regards to poverty and hunger statistics, “Over 840 million people in the world are malnourished—799 million of them are from the developing world. Sadly, more than 153 million of them are under the age of 5 (half the entire US population).” Further, “Every day, 34,000 children under five die of hunger or other hunger-related diseases. This results in 6 million deaths a year.” That amounts to a “Hunger Holocaust” that takes place every single year. As of 2003, “Of 6.2 billion living today, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day. Nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”[13]



In 2005, according to World Bank statistics, “More than one-half of the world's people live below the internationally defined poverty line of less than U.S. $2 a day,” and “Nearly one-third of rural residents worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.”[14]



In 2006, a groundbreaking and comprehensive report released by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) reported that, “The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth.” An incredible startling statistic was that:



[T]he richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.[15]



This is worth repeating: the top 1% owns 40% of global assets; the top 10% owns 85% of world assets; and the bottom 50% owns 1% of global assets.



The 2009 UN Millennium Development Goals report stated that in the wake of the global economic crisis and the global food crisis that preceded and continued through the economic crisis, progress towards the goals of poverty reduction are “threatened by sluggish – or even negative – economic growth, diminished resources, fewer trade opportunities for the developing countries, and possible reductions in aid flows from donor nations.”[16]



The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report stated that in 2009, “an estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the crisis.” Further, “the encouraging trend in the eradication of hunger since the early 1990s was reversed in 2008, largely due to higher food prices.” Hunger in developing regions has risen to 17% in 2008, and “children bear the brunt of the burden.”[17]



In April of 2009, a major global charity, Oxfam, reported that a couple trillion dollars given to bail out banks could have been enough “to end global extreme poverty for 50 years.”[18] In September of 2009, Oxfam reported that the economic crisis “is forcing 100 people-a-minute into poverty.” Oxfam stated that, “Developing countries across the globe are struggling to respond to the global recession that continues to slash incomes, destroy jobs and has helped push the total number of hungry people in the world above 1 billion.”[19]



The financial crisis has hit the ‘developing’ world much harder than the western developed nations of the world. The UN reported in March of 2009 that, “Reduced growth in 2009 will cost the 390 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living in extreme poverty around $18 billion, or $46 per person,” and “This projected loss represents 20 per cent of the per capita income of Africa’s poor – a figure that dwarfs the losses sustained in the developed world.”[20]



While the world’s richest regions lie in North America, Europe, and Pacific Asia respectively, the vast majority of the rest of the world lives in gross poverty. This disparity is ‘colour-coded’, too; as the top, the worlds wealthy, are white, while the world’s impoverished, the vast majority of the world’s people, are people of colour. This disparity is further polarized when gender is included, as the majority of the wealthy are men, while the majority of the impoverished are women. This disparity of a global scale is carried over to a national scale in the United States.



Race and Poverty in America



In the last months of Martin Luther King’s life, he focused his attention to the struggle against poverty. Today, “Sadly, as far as the country has come regarding civil rights, more Americans live in poverty today than during King's lifetime. Forty million people, 13% of the population, currently fall below the poverty line.” In 1967, King wrote:



In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out. There are twice as many white poor as [black] poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and [black] alike.[21]



Today, “more whites than blacks do still live in poverty, but a higher proportion of minorities fall below the poverty line, including 25% of blacks and 23% of Latinos (compared to 9% of whites). Stable jobs, good housing, comprehensive education and adequate health care are still unequal, unsuitable and, in many cases, unavailable.” King wrote, “The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty.”[22]



In 1995, “Federal Reserve research found that the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent.” Further, “Wealth projections through 1997 suggest that 86 percent of stock market gains between 1989 and 1997 went to the top ten percent of households while 42 percent went to the most well-to-do one percent.”[23]



Wealth disparity is not colour-blind. As of 1998, “The modest net worth of white families [was] 8 times that of African-Americans and 12 times that of Hispanics. The median financial wealth of African-Americans (net worth less home equity) [was] $200 (one percent of the $18,000 for whites) while that of Hispanics [was] zero.” Further, “Household debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997.”[24]



In 2000, a major university study revealed that the poor were more likely to be audited by the IRS than the rich.[25] In December of 2009, the Seattle Times ran an article in which they tell the story of Rachel Porcaro, a 32-year-old mother of two boys. She was summoned to the IRS back in 2008 where she was told she was being audited. When she asked why, she was told that, “You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle.” Thus, “They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money.”[26]



The reporter for the Seattle Times wrote that, “An estimated 60,000 people in Seattle live below the poverty line — meaning they make $11,000 or less for an individual or $22,000 for a family of four. Does the IRS red-flag them for scrutiny, simply because they're poor?” He contacted the local IRS office with that question; they “said they couldn't comment for privacy reasons.” What followed the initial audit was even worse:



She had a yearlong odyssey into the maw of the IRS. After being told she couldn't survive in Seattle on so little, she was notified her returns for both 2006 and 2007 had been found "deficient." She owed the government more than $16,000 — almost an entire year's pay.



[. . . ] Rachel's returns weren't all that complicated. At issue, though, was that she and her two sons, ages 10 and 8, were all living at her parents' house in Rainier Beach (she pays $400 a month rent). So the IRS concluded she wasn't providing for her children and therefore couldn't claim them as dependents.[27]



A family friend who was an accountant determined that the IRS was wrong in its interpretation of the tax law; “He sent in the necessary code citations and hoped that would be the end of it.” But the story wasn’t over; “Instead, the IRS responded by launching an audit of Rachel's parents.” Rachel said, “We're surviving as a tribe. It seems like we got punished for that.”[28]



Taxation is a major issue related to poverty. A major report issued in November of 2009 revealed that the state of “Alabama makes families living in poverty pay higher income taxes than any other state.” Thus, “At the lowest incomes, we have some of the highest taxes in the nation because our system is upside down.”[29]



In November of 2009, stunning statistics were revealed as a true test of poverty in America:



With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.



It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.



Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.[30]



The food stamps program is growing at the pace of 20,000 people per day, as “There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps,” and “In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children.” Further, “food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible” nationwide.[31] Thus, there is potentially 18 million more Americans eligible to use food stamps, which would make the figure soar to 54 million.



In 2008, tent cities started popping up in and around cities all across the United States, as the homeless population rapidly expanded like never before.[32] The Guardian reported in March of 2009 that, “Tent cities reminiscent of the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression have been springing up in cities across the United States - from Reno in Nevada to Tampa in Florida - as foreclosures and redundancies force middle-class families from their homes.”[33]



An April 2009 article in the German newspaper Der Spiegel ran a report on the middle class in the US being thrown into poverty, in which the authors wrote, “The financial crisis in the US has triggered a social crisis of historic dimensions. Soup kitchens are suddenly in great demand and tent cities are popping up in the shadow of glistening office towers.” Further:



Poverty as a mass phenomenon is back. About 50 million Americans have no health insurance, and more people are added to their ranks every day. More than [36] million people receive food stamps, and 13 million are unemployed. The homeless population is growing in tandem with a rapid rise in the rate of foreclosures, which were 45 percent higher in March 2009 than they were in the same month of the previous year.



[. . . ] The crisis in the lower third of society has turned into an existential threat for some Americans. Many soup kitchens are turning away the hungry, and even hastily constructed new facilities to house the homeless are often inadequate to satisfy the rising demand.



Many private corporations across America are withdrawing their funding for social welfare projects. Ironically, their generosity is ending just as mass poverty is returning to America.[34]



Crime was also reported to be on the rise at a dramatic rate. One criminologist explained that in the face of more Americans struggling in harsh economic times, “The American dream to them is a nightmare, and the land of opportunity is but a cruel joke.” Statistics were confirming his predictions of a rise in crisis-related crime, as April 2009 was “one of the bloodier months in American criminal history.” A professor of criminology stated, “I've never seen such a large number (of killings) over such a short period of time involving so many victims.”[35]



In the midst of the euphoria over a perceived economic recovery, which has yet to “trickle down” to the people, tent cities have not vanished. In late February of 2010, it was reported that, “Just an hour outside of New York City, a thriving tent city gives a home to refugees from the economic downturn.” Many people in poverty “have become so desperate that they have had to move into the woods.” One woman in this forest tent city outside of New York had been living there for two years. She said, “I just went through a divorce. And it was a bad divorce. And I ended up here, homeless in here.”[36]



Rob, a 21-year-old who was laid off when the Great ‘Recession’ began, is the youngest homeless man living in the forest tent city. He said the worst part is the shame, “The embarrassment of walking out of here, the cars see you come by and they know who you are. The shame of walking into town and having people give you dirty looks just for the way you’re forced to live.”[37]



While many more millions are being plunged into poverty, the internal disparities of race, gender, and age still persist. In November of 2009, it was reported that the jobless rate for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions, as 34.5% of young black men were unemployed in October of 2009, “more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population.” Further:



The jobless rate for young black men and women is 30.5 percent. For young blacks -- who experts say are more likely to grow up in impoverished racially isolated neighborhoods, attend subpar public schools and experience discrimination -- race statistically appears to be a bigger factor in their unemployment than age, income or even education. Lower-income white teens were more likely to find work than upper-income black teens, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, and even blacks who graduate from college suffer from joblessness at twice the rate of their white peers.[38]



Another startling statistic in the report was that, “Young black women have an unemployment rate of 26.5 percent, while the rate for all 16-to-24-year-old women is 15.4 percent.” The fact that these are the statistics for young people is especially concerning, as “the consequences can be long-lasting”:



This might be the first generation that does not keep up with its parents' standard of living. Jobless teens are more likely to be jobless twenty-somethings. Once forced onto the sidelines, they likely will not catch up financially for many years. That is the case even for young people of all ethnic groups who graduate from college.[39]



With poverty, food scarcity increases. While many Americans and people the world over have felt the effects of the recession on their daily meals, the race disparity persists in this facet as well, as “one in four African-American households struggles to put food on the table on a regular basis, compared with about one in seven households nationally.” Further, “90 percent of African American children will receive food stamp benefits by the time they turn 20.”[40]



In March of 2010, a truly staggering report was released by a major economic research group which concluded that, “Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5.” Let’s review that again:



[W]hile single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.[41]



The research organization analyzed data from the Federal Reserve’s 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances. Wealth, or net worth, in the report, is defined as:



[T]he total of one's assets -- cash in the bank, stocks, bonds and real estate; minus debts -- home mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and student loans. The most recent financial data was collected before the economic downturn, so the current numbers likely are worse now than at the time of the study.[42]



The study further revealed that, “For all working-age black women 18 to 64, the financial picture is bleak. Their median household wealth is only $100. Hispanic women in that age group have a median wealth of $120.” Black women are more likely to be hit with the responsibility of working and raising children on their own:



In a 2008 study of black women and their money, the ING Foundation found that black women -- who frequently manage the assets of their households -- financially support friends, family and their houses of worship to a much greater degree than the general population.



They also are more likely to be employed in jobs and industries -- such as service occupations -- with lower pay and less access to health insurance. And when their working days are done, they rely most heavily on Social Security because they are less likely to have personal savings, retirement accounts or company pensions. Their Social Security benefits are likely to be lower, too, because of their low earnings.[43]



The poor youth of America are also disproportionately subject to racial exacerbations of their social situations. In America, “more than half of all young adult dropouts are jobless. And dropouts are at greater risk of being incarcerated and having poorer physical and mental health than those who graduate.” Again, the racial disparity emerges, as “[p]oor and minority youths are far less likely to graduate from high school than white children.”



An October 2009 report released by the National Center for Education Statistics says 59.8 percent of blacks, 62.2 percent of Hispanics, and 61.2 percent of American Indians graduated from public high school in four years with a regular diploma in the 2006-2007 school year compared to 79.8 percent for whites and 91.2 percent for Asian and Pacific Islanders. Black and Hispanic dropout rates were more than twice those of white youths.[44]



Many youths then venture into crime to survive. It is here where another racial divide rears its head in a clear example of how Justice is not blind, but sees in technicolour. The incarceration rate, that is, the prison rate of Americans is colour-coded. Black men are incarcerated “at a rate that is over 6 times higher than that for white males.” While black Americans make up 13% of the US population, they make up 40% of the US prison population. Meanwhile, whites make up 66% of the US population, yet only 34% of the prison population. Hispanics make up 15% of the U.S. population, and account for 20% of the prison population.[45]



The poor youth are subject to further insults, as new federally funded drug research revealed a startling and bleak disparity: poor children who are dependent upon Medicaid, a government health program for low-income families, “are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance.” Further, these children, the poor children, “are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts.” A research team from Rutgers and Columbia posed the question:



Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?[46]



The effects are not simply psychological, as “Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.” Ultimately, what the research concluded was that, “children with diagnoses of mental or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.”[47]



A study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry revealed that, “Children and youth on certain antipsychotic medications are more prone to getting diabetes and becoming fat,” and that, “the medication has significant and worrying side-effects.”[48] In America, the prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs to children rose five-fold between 1995 and 2002 to roughly 2.5 million.[49]



Thus, we have a situation in which the poor are treated in such a way as to dehumanize them altogether; to deprive them not simply of life’s necessities, but to then use them as guinea pigs and to punish them for their poverty. Hubert Humphrey once said, “A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members.” How shall our societies be thus judged?



War and Poverty



It is to our own detriment that we fail to see the relationship between war and poverty both on a national and global level. War is the most violent and oppressive tool used by the powerful to control people and resources. The industry of war profits very few at the expense of the majority; it does not simply impoverish the nation that is attacked, but impoverishes the nation that is attacking.



In April of 1967, one year before Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, he delivered a speech entitled, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” This speech is one of King’s lesser known, yet arguably, one of his most important. While reading the text of the speech does it no justice to the words spoken from King’s mouth in his magnanimous manner, they are worth reading all the same. Dr. King declared that, “A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.” His words are as significant today as the day they were spoken, and are worth quoting at some length:



Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. [. . . ]



Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.



[. . . ] I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.



Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.



My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.



[. . . ] In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."



Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.



I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.



[. . . ] A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.



[. . . ] The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.[50]



After delivering such a monumental speech against war and empire, King was attacked by the national media; with Life Magazine calling the speech, “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,” and the Washington Post saying that, “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”[51]



War is inextricably linked to the impoverishment of people around the world and at home. Inherent within the system of war, racial divides and exploitation are further exacerbated.



In the midst of the economic crisis, military recruitment went up, as the newly unemployed seek job security and an education. A Pentagon official said in October of 2008 that, “We do benefit when things look less positive in civil society,” as “185,000 men and women entered active-duty military service, the highest number since 2003, according to Pentagon statistics. Another 140,000 signed up for duty in the National Guard and reserve.”[52]



In November of 2008, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported that recruitment into the military had increased by over 14% as a result of the economic crisis. Interestingly, “The north of England, where the credit crunch has hit hard, is among the areas where the MoD says recruitment is at its strongest.”[53]



In 2005, it was reported that the Pentagon had developed a database of teenagers 16-18 and all college students “to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment.” Further, according to the Washington Post, “The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.”[54]



The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report in 2008, which revealed that there is a dangerous trend in recruiting youth in the United States. Recruitment of youth 16 and younger is prohibited in the United States, however:



[T]he U.S. armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. The U.S. military heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact. Despite a lawsuit challenging its identification of eleventh-grade high school students for recruitment, the Department of Defense’s central recruitment database continues to collect information on 16-year-olds for recruitment purposes.[55]



Various Army programs and recruitment services target students as young as 11, which includes a video game used as a tool for Army recruitment “explicitly marketed to children as young as 13.” Further, “The U.S. military’s recruitment policies, practices, and strategies explicitly target students under 17 for recruitment activities on high school campuses.”[56]



In 2007, prior to the economic crisis, it was reported that, “nearly three quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average.” Further, “More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.” The war casualties have disproportionately affected rural American towns, which make up the majority of military recruits. Interestingly, between “1997 to 2003, 1.5 million rural workers lost their jobs due to changes in industries like manufacturing that have traditionally employed rural workers.”[57] Now, they make up the majority of war casualties. War and poverty are inherently related in this example: the most impoverished suffer the most in war.



In 2007, it was further reported that more than 30,000 foreign troops are enlisted in the US Army, being recruited to join from foreign nations such as Mexico in return for being granted US citizenship.[58] In 2005, whites made up 80% of Army recruits, while blacks made up 15% of recruits. In 2008, whites made up 79%, while blacks made up 16.5% of Army recruits. However, an interesting statistic is that between 2007 and 2008, there was a 5% increase in the recruit of whites, while over the same period there was nearly a 96% increase in the recruitment of blacks. In 2008, 52% of recruits were under the age of 21. For the fifth year in a row, as of 2008, “youth from low- to middle-income neighborhoods are over-represented among new Army recruits.”[59]



In March of 2008, The Nation published an article entitled “The War and the Working Class,” in which it explained that the American military operated under an “economic draft,” as “Members of the armed forces come mainly and disproportionately from the working class and from small-town and rural America, where opportunities are hard to come by.”[60] This was even before the economic crisis had really started to be noticed in the United States.



In January of 2009 it was reported that, “The Army and each of the other branches of the military are meeting or exceeding their goals for signing up recruits, and attracting more qualified people.”[61] In March of 2009, it was reported that, “Fresh recruits keep pouring into the U.S. military, as concerns about serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are eclipsed by the terrible civilian job market.” All branches of the armed forces “met or exceeded their active duty recruiting goals for January, continuing a trend that began with a decline in the U.S. job market.”



The military acknowledged that weakness in the U.S. economy, which lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008 and another 598,000 in January, has made the armed services more appealing to potential recruits.[62]



It was reported in October of 2009 that due to the economic crisis, “Middle-class American youth are entering the military in significant numbers,” as the Department of Defense announced “that for the first time since the draft ended and the all-volunteer force began 36 years ago, every service branch and reserve component met or exceeded its recruiting goals, both in numbers and quality.” As the economic crisis “resulted in the largest and the swiftest increase in overall unemployment that we've ever experienced,” this created a boom for military recruiting.[63]



In December of 2009 it was reported that with a record number of college graduates unable to find work, recruitment soared to record levels, even in the midst of President Obama announcing the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. As one commentator put it:



The United States is broken – school systems are deteriorating, the economy is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding – yet we’re nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a million dollars each.[64]



In January of 2010 it was reported by the military that many Marines nearing the end of their active duty are reconsidering re-enlisting due to the severe economic situation. According to the U.S. Department of Labor in November of 2009, there were 15.4 million unemployed people in the United States, with the unemployment rate hitting 10%. “Employment fell in construction, manufacturing and information industries, while jobs in temporary help services and health care increased.” Thus, the unemployment figures are somewhat deceiving, as it doesn’t take into account all the people that only rely upon part-time jobs, as “People working part-time jobs for economic reasons numbered 9.2 million. These individuals worked part-time because their hours at another job had been cut back or they were unable to find a full-time job.” Hence, “Marines reenlist for numerous economic reasons.”[65]



In 2007, Obama campaigned on a promise to increase defense spending, and that he wanted the American military to “stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar,” from Africa to Afghanistan. Obama proclaimed his belief that “the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face,” and he said that, “no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary,” not simply to “protect ourselves,” but also to protect America’s “vital interests.”[66]



Sure enough, Obama followed through on those promises. Obama increased defense spending from the previous year. Alone, the United States spends almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined, including seven times the amount as the next largest defense spender, China.[67]



In October of 2009, Obama signed the largest-ever bill for military spending, amounting to $680 billion. At the same time, he authorized a spending bill of $44 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. A sad irony was that, “Obama signed the record Pentagon budget less than three weeks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.”[68]



In February of 2010, Obama asked Congress to approve a new record-setting defense budget, at $708 billion.[69] Interestingly, “the Pentagon budget increased for every year of the first decade of the 21st century, an unprecedented run that didn't even happen in the World War II era, much less during Korea or Vietnam.” Further, “if the government's current plans are carried out, there will be yearly increases in military spending for at least another decade.”[70]



As Eric Margolis wrote in February of 2010:



Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.



[. . . ] China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.



There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.



Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.



Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations ­— putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.[71]



Thus, the American Empire is in decline, spending itself into utter debt and is at the point of “imperial overreach.” As Eric Margolis wrote, “If Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.”[72]



So, while people at home are on food stamps, welfare, living in tent cities, going to soup kitchens, getting by on debt, and losing their jobs; America sends forces abroad, conducting multiple wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, expanding the war into Pakistan, funding military operations in Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, building massive new military bases in Pakistan and Colombia and providing military aid to governments around the world. As the empire expands, the people become more impoverished.



We cannot afford to ignore the relationship between war, poverty and race. The poor are made to fight the poor; both are often disproportionately people of colour. Yet war enriches the upper class, at least powerful sects of it in industry, the military, oil and banking. In a war economy, death is good for business, poverty is good for society, and power is good for politics. Western nations, particularly the United States, spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year to murder innocent people in far-away impoverished nations, while the people at home suffer the disparities of poverty, class, gender and racial divides. We are told we fight to “spread freedom” and “democracy” around the world; yet, our freedoms and democracy erode and vanish at home. You cannot spread what you do not have. As George Orwell once wrote:



The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

"We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda"

PBS Talk Show Host Tavis Smiley hosted african american leaders for a forum titled, "We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda." Panelists included, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), Cornel West and Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan. Earlier this year, Smiley announced he will no longer host his annual State of the Black Union symposium.
www.finalcall.com/blackagenda
OR
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/03/20/HP/R/30805/We+Count+The+Black+Agenda+is+the+American+Agenda.aspx

Farrakhan Speaks to the world this sunday

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan speaks live via webcast, Sunday March 14 at 10am CST @ NOI.org/Webcast

Chicago, IL (NOI.org) - The Honorable Minister Farrakhan's powerful lecture series: The Time and What Must Be Done live from Mosque Maryam in Chicago continues on Sunday March 14, 2010.
The live address will be freely available to the public at your local Nation of Islam mosque and @ http://www.noi.org/webcast/ 10am Central Time. The Minister's subject will be "The Time and What Must Be Done; The Great War."

"America does not have a future, and you have no future in her. I want you to hear me today because I can't hold back. I can't sweeten up the truth for weak hearted people. I have to tell it regardless of the consequences," the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan boldly declared during his March 7, 2010 address to thousands who watched from the grounds of the National Center of the Nation of Islam and the thousands more who watched his address live via webcast in homes and venues across the country and globe.

Death Toll In Turkey Earthquake Rises To 57

OKCULAR, Turkey – Hundreds of earthquake survivors huddled in aid tents and around bonfires Monday in eastern Turkey, seeking relief from the winter cold after a strong temblor knocked down stone and mud-brick houses in five villages, killing 51 people.

The damage appeared worst in the Kurdish village of Okcular, which was almost razed. At least 15 of the village's 900 residents were killed, the Elazig governor's office said, and the air was thick with dust from crumpled homes and barns.

The pre-dawn earthquake caught many residents as they slept, shaking the area's poorly made buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into the narrow streets of this village perched on a hill in front of snow-covered mountains, with some people climbing out of windows to escape.

"I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn't open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbors," Ali Riza Ferhat of Okcular told NTV television. "We removed six bodies."

The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Basyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of Elazig province. The region is 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.

The U.S. Geological Survey listed the quake at 5.9 magnitude.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kandilli Observatory's director, Mustafa Erdik, urged residents not to enter any damaged homes, warning they could topple from aftershocks that Erdik said could last for days.

More than 100 aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 magnitude shook the region on Monday alone.

In addition to the deaths, 34 people were being treated for injuries, Turkey's crisis center said.

Abdulkerim Sekerdag, 72, said he had just risen for early morning prayers when the quake hit.

"The jolt threw me onto the ground," he told The Associated Press. "When I got up I checked my animals and then I checked on my neighbors."

"Two of them were buried. We pulled them out," he said, adding that they were alive but injured.

Men used shovels and bare hands to dig two bodies out from under piles of dirt, rubble and concrete blocks, video footage showed. Both bodies were covered in blankets and carried away. One appeared to be a baby or young child.

Women in veils gathered near the rescue scenes, some crying.

"Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place," said Yadin Apaydin, administrator for the village of Yukari Kanatli, where three died.

Fifteen people were killed in the nearby village of Yukari Demirci, Gov. Muammer Erol said, while four each were killed in the villages of Kayalik and Gocmezler and 10 others died after being taken to a hospital in the town of Kovancilar.

Most of the dead were immediately buried according to Muslim traditions. A few funerals had to be put off until Tuesday.

The temblor also knocked down barns, killing many farm animals. A half-dozen dead cows were seen partially buried near one collapsed home. One man, Haci Sekerdag, said he lost eight cows and calves — his main livelihood.

The Turkish Red Crescent set up tents and villagers laid plastic sheeting to shelter them from the cold and dirt. The government said it rushed ambulance helicopters, prefabricated homes and mobile kitchens into the stricken area.

Erdogan blamed the region's mud-brick buildings for the many deaths and said the government housing agency would build quake-proof homes in the area.

The quake was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir, where residents fled to the streets in panic and stayed outdoors. Schools were closed for two days. In Tunceli province, the quake caused one school's walls to crack, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

A museum in Elazig displaying artifacts from the Iron-age Kingdom of Urartu was not affected by the quake, and nearby dams were also intact.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies on top of two main fault lines. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes struck the country's northwest, killing about 18,000 people. In 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in Bingol, including 84 children whose school dormitory collapsed.

Monday's quake in eastern Turkey followed deadly recent temblors in Haiti and Chile, but Bernard Doft, the seismologist for the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in Utrecht, said there was no direct connection between the three.

"These events are too far apart to be of direct influence to each other," he said.

Richard Luckett, a seismologist from the British Geological Survey, said there has not been a spike in global seismic activity.

"If there was a big increase in the number of magnitude 6.0s in the past decade we would know it, because we would see it in the statistics," Luckett said. "We haven't seen an increase in 7.0s either."

He said scientists often see strong earthquakes but they don't get reported because the damage or death toll is minimal. According to USGS data, the world is hit by about 134 earthquakes a year in the 6.0- to 6.9-magnitude range — or about two a week.

"The point is that earthquakes are common and always have been," he said.

__

Farrakhan Speaks to the world this sunday

Join Minister Farrakhan THIS SUNDAY, March 7 at 11am EST for MORE of what you enjoyed at Saviours' Day 2010! Visit us at your area Nation of Islam Mosque or Study Group, or go to www.finalcall.com and follow the info for "Webcast"... Come, Accept Your Own, and BE YOURSELF!

Local UFO Sightings on the Rise

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Bright white lights and strange, triangular shaped objects, Tennesseans are reporting some unusual things overhead. Don't expect that to stop anytime soon, a local group that investigates UFO close encounters says sightings are on the rise.

For decades millions of people have reported seeing UFO's. A recent poll shows one in 12 Americans have seen a mysterious object in the sky, and that a third of adults believe it's likely aliens have visited earth. While some say the increase in volume of reports in Tennessee are enough to make any investigator sit up and take notice, others say it's all in their heads.

The skies over Tennessee have been busy lately, but some say, it's not your typical air traffic. A commercial airline pilot from Memphis shows us where he spotted a UFO. He pointed out the UFO's path, saying, "It started here, passed over about this speed and leveled out down there."

This pilot, who doesn't want to be identified for fear he'll lose his job, says he saw a UFO in the sky over Cordova around 9:45pm on November 24, 2009.

"[It was] absolutely not an airplane, not an airship, this object speed it was flying at, the shape there is nothing in the air even similar in the least bit to what I saw," the pilot claimed.

The pilot, who has more than 25 years experience, said the black triangle he saw was flying as fast as 1,000 miles per hour, but was completely silent. He said it looked exactly like YouTube video of what an estimated 13,000 saw flying over Belgium in 1990.

"I could not honestly believe what I saw," he amazed. "[I] stood there for honestly a few minutes thinking what I was going to do or who I was going to report this to."

The pilot reported it to the Tennessee Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON. MUFON is the largest UFO research and education organization in the United States. The non-profit group is made up of volunteers like Alyson Burgess.

"All we do is if someone reports an object we try our best to figure out if we can identify it," said Burgess. "If we can't identify it it's called an 'unknown.'"

The pilot's sighting is classified as 'unknown,' but Burgess says 90% of sightings can be attributed to things like airplanes or meteors. What the group can't explain is the uptick in reports.

"[It] seems like it's going to be a busy year for us," said Burgess.

The pilot's was one of 30 sightings in Tennessee from October to December of last year. Typically, there are between 4 and 8 a month. There have been 10 sightings so far this year.

State MUFON Director, Eddie Middleton said the skies have never been so active in Tennessee.

"It's like building to some sort of crescendo getting more intense all the time," said Middleton. "I don't know where it's leading; it's getting more intense, something's got to give here before long landing on the White House lawn or whatever."

While many report seeing large black triangles, others see flying saucers or cigar shaped crafts. Middleton said, "The evidence is overwhelming we are being visited. If anyone takes time to look they will find it extremely compelling."

James McGaha has looked. He's an astronomer and a scientific consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a group that encourages critical examination of unusual claims. He believes popular UFO TV shows are contributing to increased reports.

"A light in the sky is a light in the sky," stated McGaha. "There are hundreds of different things that can be light in the sky, and not aliens or spacecraft from other worlds."

He's particularly skeptical of the black triangle sightings. "It appears the object is a large solid craft when it's simply not, it's 3 airplanes flying in formation that is responsible for most of those sightings."

McGaha, a retired air force pilot, also questions the Memphis pilot's sighting. "It should be pointed out pilots are not trained observers, pilots are trained to fly airplanes and fly them safely and they are no more reliable than any other witness."

McGaha says whether or not extraterrestrial life exists, it's almost impossible for it to visit earth on a regular basis, saying travel at speed of light is not easy.

"From an astronomer's view, there are other issues that make it very difficult for aliens to get here because simply physics of it, the amount of energy and time takes for aliens civilization to reach the earth."

Despite a field investigative manual showing pictures of aliens, MUFON does not take a stance on extraterrestrial life.

"I'm not sure if these craft are coming from beyond the planet, I'm not sure if they belong to us or other countries," said Burgess. "What I am sure of there are a lot of people seem to be seeing this, they can't explain and they deserve a voice and to be listened to."

The Memphis pilot we spoke with says he doesn't drink, do drugs or take medication. He admits his sighting had him questioning his sanity and if he's a "believer."

"It's been confusing for me but I know what I saw, it was unreal. If this other intelligent life is visiting us here it would change my view on everything."

Do you believe? Tell us what you think and join in the conversation below.

Toll free number to report UFO's anytime: 1-888-370-3088

Cuba Starts Trial on Natural Drug to Fight Cancer and AIDS

Cuba Starts Trial on Natural Drug to Fight Cancer and AIDS

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 23 (acn) The effects of anamú tablets, a drug made from the leaves of this plant, will be tried from March in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

Developed by East Pharmaceutical (LFO), the first natural Cuban stimulant that will help patients with cancer and AIDS, whose immunological system is depressed as a result of the disease and aggressive treatments they receive.

In statements published in Juventud Rebelde newspaper, Master Zoe Lemus, a specialist at the said laboratory, explained that they concluded the industrial scale production of some 160 000 tablets.

These pills will be introduced in specialized consultations at Conrado Benitez oncology hospital, and the HIV-Oriente Center, located in the Juan Bruno Zayas hospital, both institutions in Santiago de Cuba.

Anamu is an herbaceous perennial that grows up to 1 m in height. It is indigenous to the Amazon rainforest and tropical areas of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Africa.

The plant has a long history in herbal medicine in all of the tropical countries where it grows. In Brazilian herbal medicine, it is considered an antispasmodic, diuretic, menstrual promoter, stimulant, and sweat promoter. In other countries is use to treat edema, arthritis, malaria, rheumatism, and poor memory, and as a topical analgesic and anti-inflammatory for skin afflictions.

Following successful animal testing and the registration of the new drug, the immediate initiation of studies in patients can be interpreted as an achievement of science from Santiago de Cuba.

This was the result of integration between specialists of the LFO, the Center for Toxicology and Biomedicine and the Regulatory Bureau for Health Protection in the said province.

Big Business in Disaster:Copper Jumps Most in 11 Months on Chile Earthquake

Copper climbed the most in 11 months in New York and mining shares surged after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile, the world’s biggest producer, forced Codelco and Anglo American Plc to shut mine operations.

Futures for May delivery in New York soared 6.2 percent, the biggest gain since April, and Jiangxi Copper Co. and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. gained as much as 10 percent on speculation the quake would disrupt shipments. Copper in London climbed to the highest level in more than five weeks.

The temblor disrupted almost 5 percent of world copper production, according to estimates from Walter de Wet, a London- based analyst at Standard Bank Plc. Chile mined 5.4 million metric tons of the metal last year, or about 34 percent of global output. Prices more than doubled in the past 12 months as the world economy recovered from its worst postwar recession.

“I would think it’s a knee-jerk reaction,” Geoff Clear, head of Asia commodities at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said. “But it’s not an unreasonable one on expectation that it is a seriously big producer. We have to wait for confirmation on how damaged things are.”

Codelco, the world’s largest producer, said it will meet supply contracts. The state-owned company can compensate for any shortfalls from its affected El Teniente and Andina mines with shipments from undamaged plants in Chile’s north, according to a company official briefed on the plans.

Structural Damage

The company ruled out declaring force majeure, a clause in contracts that allows companies to miss obligations because of circumstances beyond their control.

The impact “appears to be limited for now but should not be insignificant in a copper market that continues to see a chronic underperforming supply side,” de Wet said in an e-mail today. There was “sufficient infrastructure damage,” especially to power supply, to disrupt around 17 percent of the country’s copper production, he said.

Codelco began a “gradual” restart of operations at the 381,000 ton-a-year El Teniente underground mine in central Chile after reconnecting the power supply cut by the earthquake. The temblor didn’t cause any significant damage to equipment, the company said. The 219,554 ton-a-year Andina mine remained closed through yesterday after a power failure.

Bronces, Soldado

Andina may reopen later today after the power cut and a five-ton boulder damaged installations, according to the Codelco official. The Ventanas smelter that processes copper concentrates from Andina is closed for programmed maintenance, according to the official.

Anglo American Plc said Feb. 27 its Los Bronces and El Soldado mines in Chile stopped operating after power cuts. The two mines produce about 280,000 tons annually. Power to the installations was “partially restored” yesterday, spokesman Pranill Ramchander said in e-mailed comments, without giving more details on whether the company was planning a restart.

May-delivery copper gained as much as 20.3 cents, or 6.2 percent, to $3.4870 a pound, before trading at $3.39 at 1:52 p.m. Shanghai time, in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the largest intraday gain for the most-active contract since April.

Copper for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange jumped as much as 5.6 percent to $7,600 a ton before trading at $7,460, up 3.7 percent. Futures in Shanghai climbed the 5 percent daily limit.

Reduce Surplus

“Our latest demand and supply balance put the copper market in a 125,000-ton surplus in 2010,” said de Wet. Ten days of production losses at the four mines “could wipe out a fifth of the copper surplus for the year,” he said.

The Chilean ports of Valparaiso and San Antonio, through which El Teniente ships its copper, remain closed to new ships, Raul Maturana, secretary general of the National Federation of Port Workers of Chile, said in a telephone interview. Trucks with cargo aren’t leaving the ports either, he said.

There will be a coordination meeting at 10 a.m. local time with port authorities to evaluate when normal activities may resume, he said.

“Exports from Chile look to be largely unaffected,” de Wet said. While port activities at San Antonio are closed, there was no impact on the larger and more important ports of Antofagasta and Mejillones, he said. As mines should have some above-ground stockpiles, “as long as ports are open, the export of copper from Chile may see little disruption,” he said.

China, Japan

China, the world’s biggest copper consumer, bought 1.45 million tons of refined material from Chile last year, almost half of total record imports of 3.19 million tons, customs figures show. The country purchased 1.38 million tons of concentrate and ore from Chile, or 23 percent of the total.

Japan’s concentrate imports from Chile are unlikely to be affected, said an executive at Pan Pacific Copper Co.

“I don’t think there will be any significant impact,” said Hidenori Kamoo, general manager of the market research team at Pan Pacific Copper, the country’s top smelter. “Our imports mostly are from mines in the northern part of the country.”

Japan imported 1.7 million wet metric tons of concentrates from Chile in 2009, 36 percent of total purchases, said Kamoo, citing finance ministry data. A wet ton includes 8 percent water.

Concepcion, the epicenter of the quake which killed more than 700 people, is 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of the Chilean capital of Santiago.