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Black people have been fighting for equality for decades and they are still excersizing their rights today with the Black Lives Matter protest. Due to police brutality, discrimination, and blatant racism, black people started a hashtag on twitter to show that black lives matter too. Young kids are using social media to change America for the better.

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In the 1960s, if you were a civil rights worker stationed in the Deep South and you needed to get some urgent news out to the rest of the world-word of a beating or an activist's arrest or some brewing state of danger-you would likely head straight for a telephone.

From an office or a phone booth in hostile territory, you would place a call to one of the major national civil rights organizations. But you wouldn't do it by dialing a standard long-distance number. That would involve speaking first to a switchboard operator-who was bound to be white and who might block your call. Instead you'd dial the number for something called a Wide Area Telephone Service, or WATS, line.

Like an 800 line, you could dial a WATS number from anywhere in the region and the call would patch directly through to the business or organization that paid for the line-in this case, say, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

On the other end of the line, another civil rights worker would be ready to take down your report and all the others pouring in from phones scattered across the South. The terse, action-packed write-ups would then be compiled into mimeographed "WATS reports" mailed out to organization leaders, the media, the Justice Department, lawyers, and other friends of the movement across the country.

In other words, it took a lot of infrastructure to live-tweet what was going on in the streets of the Jim Crow South.

Any large social movement is shaped by the technology available to it and tailors its goals, tactics, and rhetoric to the media of its time. On the afternoon of Sunday, March 7, 1965, when voting-rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, were run down by policemen at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the WATS lines were in heavy use. ("Here come the white hoodlums," an activist said from a corner pay phone at 3:25 pm.) But the technology that was most important to the movement's larger aims was not in activists' hands at all: It was in a set of film canisters being ferried past police blockades on Highway 80 by an ABC News TV crew, racing for the Montgomery airport and heading to New York for an evening broadcast. That night, 48 million Americans would watch the scene in their living rooms, and a few days later Martin Luther King Jr. would lay bare the movement's core media strategy. "We will no longer let them use their clubs on us in the dark corners," he said. "We're going to make them do it in the glaring light of television."

"The tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally different than anything that's existed before in black struggle."

"It was a rare admission," writes media historian Aniko Bodroghkozy. "King and other civil rights organizers seldom acknowledged their own self-conscious use of the mass media." Today's African-American civil rights organizers, by contrast, talk about the tools of mass communication all the time-because their media strategy sessions are largely open to everyone on the Internet.

If you're a civil rights activist in 2015 and you need to get some news out, your first move is to choose a platform. If you want to post a video of a protest or a violent arrest, you put it up on Vine, Instagram, or Periscope. If you want to avoid trolls or snooping authorities and you need to coordinate some kind of action, you might chat privately with other activists on GroupMe. If you want to rapidly mobilize a bunch of people you know and you don't want the whole world clued in, you use SMS or WhatsApp. If you want to mobilize a ton of people you might not know and you do want the whole world to talk about it: Twitter.

And if, God forbid, you find yourself standing in front of the next Michael Brown or Walter Scott, and you know the nation's attention needs to swerve hard to your town, your best bet might be to send a direct message to someone like DeRay Mckesson, one of a handful of activists who sit at the apex of social networks that now run hundreds of thousands strong. "The thing about King or Ella Baker is that they could not just wake up and sit at the breakfast table and talk to a million people," says Mckesson, a former school district administrator who has become one of the most visible faces of the movement. "The tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally different than anything that's existed before in black struggle."

#BlackLivesMatter became a hashtag in the summer of 2013, when an Oakland, California, labor organizer named Alicia Garza responded on her Facebook page to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man who gunned down Trayvon Martin. Since then it has become the banner under which dozens of disparate organizations, new and old, and millions of individuals, loosely and tightly related, press for change.

Any phenomenon that seizes the nation's attention this much needs a name-headline writers make sure of that. But it is hard to talk about the national Black Lives Matter movement without imparting a false sense of institutional coherence to it. Of course, the civil rights movement of the '60s was itself far from monolithic, but there aren't really analogues to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in today's activist scene. "It's decentralized but coordinated," says Maurice Mitchell, an organizer with a group called Blackbird. "There are no top-down mandates."

You could look at it this way: The movement of the '60s needed a big institutional structure to make things work-in part because of the limitations of the tech at the time. Now that kind of structure has come to seem vestigial. After Michael Brown was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri, and the city became a lightning rod for activism, Mckesson says he had a kind of epiphany about movement-building: "We didn't need institutions to do it," he says. Social media could serve as a source of live, raw information. It could summon people to the streets and coordinate their movements in real time. And it could swiftly push back against spurious media narratives with the force of a few thousand retweets.

Of course, some level of institution-building is still crucial, as the movement has realized. And there are downsides to the media environment that today's activists have adapted to. Despite its success in making videos of police violence go viral, social media itself has become another arena where black people are abused. Harassment, threats, and insults are basic hazards of online activism today, but they are especially pervasive for anyone speaking on the touchy subject of race in America. Mckesson, for one, says he has blocked more than 15,000 people from interacting with him on Twitter. He retweets some of the haters. It's occasionally hard to read. (There's a stale, conventional wisdom that says overt racism is largely a thing of the past in America. Whoever says this clearly has not spent much time on Twitter. God help them if they start reading comments on YouTube.)

This might seem like an opportunity: Drawing hate out into the light was, after all, a signature tactic of the civil rights movement. Televised footage of well-dressed white people heckling black children as they walked to school were powerful because they were so public, says Lisa Nakamura, a professor of media and race at the University of Michigan. "But when that happens on Twitter, it's really, really private." Any given tweet might be public, but online threats are disembodied and anonymous. Bystanders don't seem to take them as seriously. Plus, the full experience of receiving a thousand threats may only really be felt by the recipient. Even in the panopticon of social media, mobs aren't all that visible.

And of course, social media is also profoundly susceptible to surveillance. We know now that many leaders of Black Lives Matter have been monitored by federal law enforcement agencies. That has prompted many to start seeking out more secure channels; in nearly all my conversations with activists about how they use different platforms, there was a point when they told me they didn't want to say any more for security reasons.

Still, this movement, as diffuse and protean as it may seem, has mounted some of the most potent civil rights activism since the '60s. It helped secure the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol. It helped pressure the federal government to investigate police practices in Ferguson and Baltimore. It has successfully pushed Democratic presidential contenders to come forward with policy proposals on the issues that specifically concern black people in America. And an offshoot of the movement, a project called Campaign Zero that was organized in part by Mckesson, has put forward a bunch of specific policy proposals to uproot police violence. A huge reason for all this success is that, perhaps more than any other modern American protest movement, they've figured out how to marshal today's tools.

The movement has also had another profound but less concrete effect: I believe that Black Lives Matter has changed the visceral experience of being black in America. I see this in the way it has become a community reflex to record interactions with police-a habit that is empowering, even as it highlights black vulnerability. I see it in the rise of a new group of black public intellectuals and in the beginnings of a new political language. And I see it in my own experience.

I grew up in Tyler, Texas, a small city in the eastern part of the state, in the 2000s. I attended the local Catholic high school-not the local public school named after Robert E. Lee, where the majority of the student body was nonwhite. No one called me a nigger, though white friends would sometimes use the slur to refer to other black people; in the next breath, they'd assure me I was different. Despite constantly feeling like I was a token, or that I had to tiptoe around white sensitivities, I couldn't have told you what ailed me. I wasn't politically conscious. I didn't have the language to speak about microaggressions, aggression-aggressions, or structural prejudice. I just endured a thing I wasn't totally sure I was enduring.

But I can still remember the fluorescent lighting of my high school's hallways and the pervasive sense that something was deeply wrong. The air itself felt toxic. I had nightmares about nuclear reactors sending clouds of poison into the sky. On those nights I'd wake up and look through my window at the moon and wonder how long it would be before I could escape.

Does it seem strange that I now associate those dreams with racism? That I see the unease I felt then as a species of profound alienation that I wasn't at all able to comprehend, because nothing I'd experienced before had prepared me to understand unthinking hate? This kind of clarity about my own experience has come with time and distance. I can't help but think that if I'd been a few years younger-if my upbringing in Tyler had overlapped with the past two years of digital and intellectual ferment in America-I would have realized far earlier that what I felt wasn't particularly unusual. "All of a sudden," Mckesson says, "you see that there's a community of people who share the same symptoms."

Of course, shared symptoms are not enough. That's why Black Lives Matter appears to be shifting into a new phase. "The movement doesn't win if there's only a small set of people who understand the solutions," Mckesson says. The movement wins when there's a broad understanding that we need a system that doesn't kill people, when a critical mass of citizens can envision what that looks like, and when concrete steps are taken to make it happen.Historians of the 1960s talk about how the media of the time helped establish a "new common sense" about race in America. I think the new common sense being established now is that racism and the struggle against it do not exist somewhere in the distant past; racial activism didn't end after King and the Black Panther Party. Technology has helped make today's struggle feel both different from and continuous with the civil rights era. All the terror and greatness we associate with that moment is right in front of our faces, as near to us as our screens.

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How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight the Power

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Technology has revolutionized how the civil rights movement can respond to racism and police brutality.

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American School Inequality & Opportunity 

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American School Inequality & Opportunity 

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This is an article that we read in class, and I had never thought about this issue before we read it. This talks about how certain kids have priveldge over others when it comes to education depending on the students home life and financial income. For example, a wealthy students' parents can get their kid extra help outside of school while kids whos parents are struggling cant get that same kind of help. From birth kids' whos parents dont have a lot of money dont have as much opportnutiy as students who do have wealthy parents.

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Well-off kids who don't get a private education still have significant advantages over their peers.

Imagine you're at a typical American high school. In one class, students line up at the exit early because they can't wait to get out. Next door, honors students are engaged in a stimulating discussion until the bell rings. After lunch, a few of those students drive to their class at a local junior college, for which they'll earn high-school and higher-education credits simultaneously. Some of these high-achievers might return home in the evening only to take another college course-this one a paid-online class-that their parents believe will help them get further ahead. Meanwhile, back at the school, the struggling kids are staring at computer screens, taking a remedial class. Maybe some of them lack Internet at home and can't watch the video lesson their math teacher posted for homework. Over the weekend, an advanced student might meet with her SAT tutor, while her not-so-fortunate classmate could be washing dishes at the local restaurant.

Although these students might share a campus and a mascot, they form a distinct population within the public school, as is common throughout the country. This disparity between the relatively advantaged students and their disadvantaged peers often parallels that between private schools and public ones. In fact, the difference in opportunity can be surprisingly extreme within a single public school-sometimes even more so than that between the public and private ones.

Just look at SAT scores, which are one of the only measurements available for comparing public- and private-school students. In the middle-class California town where I live, the main private school (which charges about $12,700 annually for tuition) and public school have almost identical average SAT scores: 1830 and 1820 (out of 2400), respectively. But within the nearby public school where I teach, the gulf between the honor students and the rest of the school population is almost too vast to measure: The seniors taking AP English, for example, reported an average SAT score of 1890, while those in the mainstream English classes reported a mean score of 1590.
When a public-school system based on equity and "equality of opportunity" is embedded within a capitalistic society, it can be a little disorienting for students, parents, and teachers.
I wrote an essay back in March explaining that I opted to send my daughter to a small private school on the grounds that attending it reflected a "buy-in" rather than an obligation. I received a lot of critical feedback, including emails from a local parent who told me that my opinion was a "shame," a teacher who called me "self-serving," and a scholar who accused me of "white flight." I anticipated their finger-pointing because I had already read a wealth of commentary related to the subject, including a highly circulated "manifesto" from Slate describing private-school parents as "bad people" and an essay on ABC.com arguing that enrolling kids in private school "sucks on many levels." In one article about homeschooling, the journalist and author Dana Goldstein reflected a prevalent-though, according to researchers, debatable-sentiment when she concluded that pulling kids out of public schools "makes it harder for less-advantaged children to thrive." Furthermore, I understood their complaints because I, too, believe a common and equitable educational system is integral to equality, democracy, and a sense of true community. As the U.S. Department of Education declares, "equity in education is vital because equality of opportunity is a core American value" and integral to the country's economic strength.

But another popular approach among parents-enrolling a child in a public school while simultaneously investing time and money in extra programs to boost the child's success and achievement-seems similar in its contribution to educational inequality.

When a child is participating in the public-school system, in theory he or she is thus supporting and benefitting from the broader goals of public education by promoting racial and socioeconomic integration on a single campus. But like students who engage in homeschooling or independent instruction, many public-school students at least occasionally leave the common group for additional outside opportunities: off-campus extracurricular programs, for example, or private tutoring. In themselves, these are worthy practices. It's commendable when students and their families want to invest personal time and money in improving individual outcomes, and when schools encourage kids to take advantage of additional opportunities. But this can enable significant discrepancies because not everyone can afford, spend time on, or otherwise access those activities.

As a parent and high-school teacher, and a veteran coach of several sports at public schools, I am sometimes perplexed by the value in personal opportunities that are afforded more easily to some students than others. Is it better for my community if I remove my daughter from the private school and instead encourage her to take honors classes at the public school? Does that actually make a difference, and, if so, how? As a teacher, should I be excited for a student who dedicates hundreds of extra hours to private tutoring and club sports? Or should I be advocating instead for the underserved students who cannot afford the help and therefore find themselves at inherent disadvantage?

Participation in AP classes-which includes a third of Class of 2013 graduates-is one example. I taught AP English at a public school for eight years, and it was an entirely different world than the mainstream English classes I teach now in the same district. Similar to Goldstein, bloggers and parents who criticize the nature of private schooling often argue that it takes the best students away from the public-school system, at the expense of overall achievement at the latter. But within a public school, AP classes can do something similar, taking the more-advanced students out of the mainstream classes. The difference in the overall GPA between students in the 11th-grade AP class (taught by another teacher) and those in the 11th-grade "college prep" class (which I now teach) is significant: 3.68 and 2.90, respectively.

A 2004 National Center for Education Statistics report, which found that students who took AP science and math had an overall GPA of 3.61, compared to 2.85 among students who hadn't taken either course-even though AP courses are much more demanding. Likewise, graduates who completed an AP or International Baccalaureate class score significantly higher on the federal government's standardized test. Plus, students who take an AP course are more likely to be surrounded by academically engaged peers, have the chance to earn college credit, and are often eligible for an extra point on the grade they received for the class (a 5.0 for an A, for example).

National statistics reveal that the student makeup of AP classes is not reflective of the school community at large, a reality that I've certainly witnessed in my time as a teacher. In 2013, students in the country who qualified for free or reduced-price meals, an indicator of poverty, represented nearly half of all high-schoolers but only 27 percent of AP test-takers. The College Board, which oversees the AP program, collected $350 million last year from the nearly 4 million tests that were taken. These exams cost students $91 apiece, though schools sometimes subsidize the fee.

Then there's concurrent enrollment, when high-school students participate in postsecondary coursework on the side, often leaving campus to do so and getting a head start over their less-advanced peers. The merit of this extra learning is undeniable, but many students are barred from it because they lack the money or didn't get the support they needed to get ahead. More than 1 million students took a course for college credit in the 2010-11 school year, and about half of them paid for their own tuition, fees, and books. Studies show that the individuals who participate in dual enrollment are more likely to both graduate from high school and earn a college degree.

I know a student who took afternoon classes at the local community college last semester and ended up attending classes at his public high school for only 15 or so hours a week. This schedule is what educators might dub a " smart start. " And it is really smart. Along with his extracurricular golfing, he has already completed more than a year's worth of college courses. He's confident he can finish his undergraduate work at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he plans on enrolling, within two years after enrolling. He's friendly and outgoing, but how much is he integrating into the mainstream student population when he's interacting almost exclusively with other high-achieving students and golfers, and spends more time on the college campus or at his job? Is this schedule conducive to the DOE's goal of achieving "equity in education"?

A more-obvious discrepancy happens when parents pay for private tutors or test-prep courses. Private schools, according to the dad and blogger Serge Bielanko, " thrive because the other ones suffer." But when parents pay for specialists to help their children excel at a standardized test such as the SAT, disadvantaged students suffer. The Atlantic has explored how the math section of the new SAT is particularly unfair to "kids who lack access to in-person test preparation" and "those who live in low-income housing." And extensive research indicates that SAT scores correlate with family income. Nobody can track exactly how much money is spent on this extra help, but the revenue for test-prep companies and private tutoring is estimated to amount to the billions.

Even participation in club sports is an example of unequal opportunity. Athletic success in high school can help boost a student's chance at being admitted to college and securing a scholarship. Participation in sports also correlates with academic success, including better grades and standardized test scores, along with improved health, concentration, and classroom behavior. High-school athletes are more likely to attend and earn degrees from college, "Most Valuable Players" even more so.

However, there isn't enough room in athletics for everyone-in 2009-10, there were just 53 school-sponsored sports opportunities for every 100 high-school boys, and only 41 for girls, according to research from the University of Michigan. Given the limited access, it's no wonder that millions of parents pay for extra coaching outside of school; participation on private club teams often boosts success in school-sponsored athletics. National data on exactly how many kids participate in private athletic programming is difficult to track down, but I can say that virtually every public-school varsity basketball player in my area-boys and girls-has played for a private team.

According to the Aspen Institute, parents of club players in 2013 spent an average of $2,300 annually per child on memberships, tournament fees, equipment, and travel-and more than $20,000 a year at the "elite" level. In theory, using a conservative estimate of $2,000 for annual expenses and multiplying that by the roughly 21 million youth playing sports outside of school, parents in the United States could be spending $42 billion a year on club sports. Just the travel alone for youth sports produces an estimated $7 billion in annual revenue, according to a 2013 National Association of Sports Commissions study.
"You see kids entering the building through the same door." Yet they enter a "second door" that's systematically "stratified."
Other examples are more politically charged. The Washington Post recently reported that "white parents in North Carolina are using public charter schools to secede from the educational system." And The Atlantic has looked at the "cutthroat world of elite public schools in New York City," where the NAACP is complaining of modern-day segregation because of the disproportionate racial makeup of eight of the city's selective public schools. Apparently, the "sorting" of high- and low-achieving kids causes uneven distributions early on.

Likewise, opting kids out of government-mandated standardized tests-an increasingly popular practice among parents-can undermine equity in public-school systems. Last month, a group of civil-rights groups issued a statement in opposition of the opt-out movement: "When parents 'opt out' of tests-even when out of protest for legitimate concerns-they're not only making a choice for their own child, they're inadvertently making a choice to undermine efforts to improve schools for every child." The group declared that the data from these tests is "critical for understanding whether and where there is equal opportunity." As Andrew J. Rotherman noted in a U.S. News & World Report op-ed, many of the same parents who boycott these tests are "more than happy to opt their children in to the college gateway tests" such as the SAT.

When a public-school system based on equity and "equality of opportunity" is embedded within a capitalistic society, it can be a little disorienting for students, parents, and teachers. The DOE can proclaim its "twin goals of access and excellence" with a confidence in noble purpose, but when the system is constructed in a way so that individual motives incidentally hinder those who don't have the same advantages, the compass can be difficult to read. But the conundrum of public-school inequality shouldn't be ignored.

I sympathize with the New Jersey parent who, commenting on the practice of academic "tracking" in his daughter's high school, was cited in an article as saying he could easily "look in a classroom and know whether it's an upper level class or a lower level class based on the racial composition." Tracking is a common process in which students are segregated based on their performance. A University of Colorado report bluntly states that while tracking is "rarely couched in the express language of race or class differences ... the preservation of privilege is always the subtext" of arguments in favor of it.

"You see kids entering the building through the same door," the New Jersey parent said. Yet they enter a "second door," he added, that's systematically "stratified."

If I, or other parents, are to eschew private schools for public institutions, how should we guide our children through that second doorway?

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Well-off kids who don’t get a private education still have significant advantages over their peers.

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This video talked about how being American means embracing other cultures, having self- reliance and freedoms, and then having equal opportuity. I agree that as Americans we need to embrace other cultures and be self-reliant, but I completely disagree that we all have equal opportunity. For example, Jennifer, who was born to a wealthy family that lives in California probably has more opportunity for success that Sean from Chicago who was born into a family who had almost no money.

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Our current president, Donald Trump gets a lot of praise and respect from a lot of people, of all ages aroud the country. People look up to President Trump and highly respect him. But why praise someone who lies and cheats? Its an American value to respect our president and be patriotic, but the country divides when it comes to embracing or opposing this specific value or opposing it.

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Is America a "bad guy" masquerading as a "good guy"?

President Trump himself has a reputation for lying. Yet he was elected President of the United States. One joke going around asks "What two words tell you that President Trump is lying?" When he says "Believe me!"

Mainstream media repeatedly portrays America as the world's leader for freedom and democracy. But sadly, this view of America appears to be factually false. Aside from having undemocratic allies like Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for human rights violations, Douglas Valentine's "The CIA As Organized Crime" (2017) is Exhibit A. It portrays a different picture of who America is, a perspective that even President Donald Trump appears to agree with when he remarked, "You think our country's so innocent?"

The exceptionalism myth fools Americans into trusting that their country is doing good, when in reality, America has routinely violated civilized standards of conduct, and could even be described as a rogue power. The US, for example, refuses to belong to the International Criminal Court, thus protecting its officials, military personnel and covert operatives from judicial prosecution when they commit crimes.

But does the right wing's delusional fantasy of American "exceptionalism" give the US the right to violate international law and customs, to target nations for regime change (Syria, Libya, Iran, Russia), to invade countries (Afghanistan, Iraq), or to kill anyone whom the US designates as a "terrorist" (drone strikes, covert operations)?

While torture is considered a crime under international law and customs, the current President of the US proudly declares he supports torture. He will not go to jail for this. After all, he is running the country.

WHAT MORAL VALUES?

When President Trump implies in an interview that America's moral standards were no better than those of Russia, Establishment media howled with shocked disbelief.

Trump "waved off a description of Mr. Putin as 'a killer' by suggesting that the US was similarly immoral." "We got a lot of killers," Trump said, "You think our country's so innocent?" (The Wall Street Journal reporting on a Bill O'Reilly Fox TV interview with President Trump, 2-6-17.)

But Trump makes a valid point. Mr. Valentine's painstaking research on the Central Intelligence Agency documents a litany of criminal actions conducted around the world: Assassinations, torture, overthrowing governments (regime change), supporting terrorists, and terrorism (false flag operations such as 9/11), drug smuggling and money laundering.

CIA methods include lying (Psy Op's/propaganda -- infiltration of media, fake news), cheating (bribing or blackmailing politicians), stealing (other country's resources), and killing (assassinations, supporting terrorists, military invasions).

A SHOCKING CONCLUSION

Mr. Valentine's investigative research leads to a shocking conclusion about the CIA and America:
"If we were allowed to understand the CIA, we'd realize it's a criminal organization that is corrupting governments and societies around the world. It's murdering civilians who haven't done anything wrong. The (US) military does the same thing in a more violent way (p. 39)."
It is not just the CIA involved in what one might term as world crimes. Pentagon generals allow the potential use of weapons of mass mutilation such as cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions (e.g., in Fallujah), landmines, and of course, weapons of mass destruction (nuclear weaponry).

America's bad guy role is carried into the United Nations, where the US shows a lack of respect for less powerful nations, and the UN itself. The US opposes a UN General Assembly proposal to ban nuclear weapons. As a result, other countries possessing nuclear weaponry (like Russia) also refuse to accept the proposed ban.

BLACKMAIL AT THE UN

From its birth the vast majority of nations at the UN have been frustrated by a rigged geopolitical system favoring the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, and France - the Permanent 5 veto powers on the Security Council.

Less powerful nations in the UN are second class citizens. When they stray from the desires of the Permanent 5 veto powers, there can be reprisals. The UN itself can be subject to threats.

US Senator Lindsey Graham, angry that nations voted their conscience regarding the illegal settlements by Israel on Palestinian lands, vows to "pull US funding" unless the UN Security Council repeals Resolution 2334 (cnn.com, 12-25-16).

Similarly, former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton insists that "there must be consequences" against the 14 countries that supported Resolution 2334. Neocon Bolton, who shows little concern regarding the needs of the world community, proclaims that the US should defund its "assessed contributions" to the UN, presumably as a warning to the UN to submit to the demands of Israel (Wall Street Journal, 12/27/16).

Finally, the Trump Administration is considering withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council for being "biased" against Israel (politico.com, 2/25/17), yet the US has accepted Saudi Arabia's presence on the Council.

UN STANDS BY HELPLESSLY

The UN is powerless to prevent international crimes directed by leaders of powerful, bully nations. International law is routinely violated by favored nations who excuse themselves from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, a court that can try individuals but with no independent enforcement capability.

The ICC has mostly been applied to a few corrupt dictators of African nations, but never to the leaders and corrupt officials from the most powerful nations.

The UN stands by helplessly even when nations are taken over by corrupt dictators who steal the peoples' money. These kleptocracies, as documented by Sarah Chayes ("Thieves of State," 2015), go unpunished, protected by the UN Charter's principle of national sovereignty (Chapter 1, Article 2).

In the UN geopolitical system of sovereignty for each nation, nations police themselves. As a result, deeply corrupted nations rarely prosecute their own world criminals since the leaders of those countries are often the very ones who are responsible for the criminal behavior in the first place.

An unlucky citizen who lives in a deeply corrupted country has no recourse for justice especially when the corruption starts at the top and runs through to the police and the courts.

The UN is generally not allowed to interfere with the domestic affairs of a nation, thus is unable to prevent the theft of the people's money and unable to stop human rights violations. This is why Saudi Arabia is allowed to oppress women, abuse immigrant workers, and maintain a "royal" kleptocracy. It supports terrorist groups like Al Qaeda linked to Wahhabi extremists, uses beheadings, and continues its barbaric invasion of neighboring Yemen.

SAVING AMERICA THROUGH A "NEW UN" AND THE EARTH CONSTITUTION

The World Constitution & Parliament Association has the solution to the gaps in the Charter which have allowed unrestricted lawlessness among the nations. WCPA's Constitution for the Federation of Earth (aka "Earth Constitution") corrects these problems, and efforts are underway to reach the UN General Assembly.

Americans lost their country when the US Supreme Court gave the nation away to the billionaires by allowing unlimited amounts of Big Money to enter the election process. Essentially, the Court cancelled democracy and turned America into an oligarchy.

While peace, environmental, and human rights activists work fervently to try to save America from an out of control oligarchy and a Deep State shadow government, world citizen activists are looking at the Big Picture -- the need for a popular global movement to help end the nightmare of world crimes within and between the nations.

Recent academic research confirms that a Charter Review is legally required and was promised, but has never been conducted. In response, Democratic World Federalists based in San Francisco has launched a campaign for UN Charter Review. DWF is calling it "The San Francisco Promise."

A Charter review by the UN General Assembly could open the door for a comparison of the current Charter to the Earth Constitution - the latter an invaluable resource for the UN to understand the type of world judiciary system that will be needed to end global lawlessness.

The Earth Constitution also calls for a democratically elected World Parliament, giving "we, the people" once and for all, a real voice in global affairs.

Dr. Roger Kotila Earth Federation News & Views

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world constitution & parliament association

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Bad American Values? Freedom to Lie, Cheat, Steal & Kill

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Is America a bad guy masquerading as a good guy? Trump questions America's moral claims. This conclusion is reinforced by Douglas Valentine's The CIA As Organized Crime. Establishment media falsely portray the US as the world's leader for democracy and freedom. Yet world crimes are repeatedly directed by leaders of powerful nations such as the US.

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According to googles definition of the american dream: "The ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative." Gatsby got his money by bootlegging so even though he did end up with wealth and success, he didnt work very hard to get there and almost cheated his way to the top. I think that to fully achieve the American Dream you need to complete all aspects of the definition and work hard to get there.

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In the past, a typical "All American" family was a wife, husband, and two or so kids while some would still argue that hat is the typical american family. Now, an american family can range from a man and a woman, to a man and a man and even a woman and a woman. While people in the LGBT community still face a lot of discrimmination, more and more poeople have embraced their identity and sexuality by standing up against this discrimmination, for example the celebrities in this video are all embracing who they are and speaking out and advocating for people in America.

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One of the biggest problems about gender inequality is the wage gap between men and females. In the earlier times a lot of women acheved the american dream, but only due to their husbands success. Currently, there are women whove achieved the American Dream but for those who are starting out with less then, its a lot harder when women are constantly starting 5 feet back from the starting line when men are getting paid more.

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"He's the best man for the job." It is hard to imagine a more chauvinistic and arrogant statement than that! Yet variations on this phrase have been uttered by men about men forever, in spite of changes to cultural norms. In his press conference announcing the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, President George H.W. Bush used the phrase "best man" several times, even though the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings were filled with scandal and acrimony, and he was confirmed by the narrowest vote margin in history.

In the corporate workplace of today, it is most assuredly not the workplace of 50 years ago. There's a computer and telephone on every desk, and smoking has been banned in almost every office. Women are no longer limited to subservient roles. In fact, many subservient roles traditionally staffed by women in the 20th century have ceased to exist. Computers and automation have drastically reduced the need for typists and switchboard operators. On the other hand, even though the secretary role has been reclassified to administrative assistant to make it more gender neutral, the reality is that only 5% of admin jobs are held by men. And at the other end of the spectrum, only 5% of Fortune 500 firms are led by women.

Gender discrimination takes many different forms. One of the worst is unequal pay for equal work. So often it was justified, erroneously, by the notion that men had families to support while women were second wage earners. In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for this pattern of behavior to exist, and it is against the law. Most large corporations have programs designed to ensure equality of pay, and the wage gap not attributable to differences in responsibility or seniority is about 5%. In large part, countless discrimination lawsuits in the 80s and 90s pushed firms in this direction, rather than just simply a sense that they need to treat everyone fairly. However, the so-called glass ceiling is still largely intact. Corporations have been abysmal failures at promoting gender equality for positions in senior management. When comparing the earnings of women to the earnings of men, women earn 80 cents for each dollar made by men.

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Gender Inequality Is Killing the American Dream

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"He's the best man for the job." It is hard to imagine a more chauvinistic and arrogant statement than that! Yet variations on this phrase have been uttered by men about men forever, in spite of changes to cultural norms. In his press conference announcing the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, President George H.W.

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This political cartoon shows that to achieve the American dream people need to have money to do so which I agree with because these days people need money to do almost anything and without money its hard to  achieve success and wealth especially in a society that favors the upper class.

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People of color struggle more to be able to achieve the "American Dream" because of discrimmination, racism and poverty. "Blacks are also three times more likely to be convicted of drug violations than whites. Only 75 percent of blacks have received post-high school education, compared to 85 percent of whites. Not surprisingly, blacks on average also make less money than whites." Its hard for black people to achieve their dream of success and wealth when they cant even make as much money as a white man and then cant afford college after high school. Some black people are at a setback from the beginning because of where their parents live and how hard it is to get out of poverty.

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The American Dream is Still : Just a Dream for Most Minorities - The Tech

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These statements portray the American dream. We can all remember hearing these statements and maybe even believing them at some point in our childhood, but now they seem almost comical. If you still actually believe them, then you are either brainwashed or a wealthy white man.

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Being American means following the rules, and respecting people around you. It means working hard so you can achieve good things in life and making changes to better yourself and others. Lastly it means being protected by the law and exercising your rights.

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In 2014, New York Times reporter Damien Cave traveled the length of highway I-35, which runs south to north through the middle of the United States, for his "The Way North" project. Along the way, he asked 35 people, "What does it mean to be American?" These are some of their answers.

Becoming American means following the rules. It means respecting your neighbors, in your own neighborhood. -Francine Sharp, 73, retired teacher in Kansas (born in Kansas)

If you work hard, you get good things in life. -José, college student/roofer; immigrant without legal status in Tulsa, Oklahoma (born in Mexico)

Being American is making a change, and making good changes. Being American is being welcoming, being caring about other people, being proud of the country. And it's forgiveness. It's not holding grudges on anything-I mean, where's that going to get you? -Natalie Villafranca, 14, in Texas (born in Dallas)

Being American means protection by the law. Anyone can say whatever they want and, even if I don't agree with them, they're still protected by the law it's my job to enforce. That's their freedom. That's their right. -Sean Larkin, 40, sergeant with Tulsa Police Department's gang unit in Tulsa, Oklahoma (born in Virginia)

Being American is red, white and blue and being free. It doesn't matter what language you speak; if you're born in America, you're still American. No matter what you look like, no matter what. -Sebastien de la Cruz, 12, student who gained attention, and backlash, when he sang the national anthem during the 2013 NBA finals in a mariachi outfit (born and lives in San Antonio)

I want all girls, especially girls of color, to know that they can be a part of science. And more than that, they can be leaders in science. I want them to know that, because I know that I am America. That I am science. I'm just the part that people refuse to recognize. -Taylor R., 13, speaking about her ambitions at the March for Science in April 2017

The following excerpts are from other Americans discussing what they think it means to "be American." Among these voices are historians and writers who think about this topic a lot, as well as individuals from other walks of life who participated in a discussion for the documentary film A More Perfect Union.

Precisely because we are not a people held together by blood, no one knows who an American is except by what they believe. It's important that we do know our history, because our history is the source of our Americanness. -Historian Gordon Wood

When people wrote "All men are created equal," they really meant men; but they didn't mean any other men except white men who owned land. That's what they meant. But because the ideas are powerful, there's no way that they could get away with holding to that. It's not possible when you have an idea that's as powerful and as revolutionary as a country founded on the idea that just because you're in the world, just because you're here, you have a right to certain things that are common to all humanity. That's really what we say in those documents. The idea that we begin the Constitution with, "We, the People" . . . even though they didn't mean me! They had no idea I'd ever want to make a claim on that. And they'd have been horrified if they'd known that any of us would. But you can't let that powerful an idea out into the world without consequences. -Writer Rosemary Bray

The American Dream has no meaning for me. What it was founded on, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in many ways I feel are used as billy clubs against minorities and cultural minorities, whether they be gay, or different in any way from the norm in this country. I, for example, don't think I'd like to go to California because of what I look like. I could be pulled over and carded, and I would have to prove my ancestry. And look how long my family has been in northern New Mexico. Ten to twelve generations! -Vicente Martinez

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In 2014, New York Times reporter Damien Cave traveled the length of highway I-35, which runs south to north through the middle of the United States, for his "The Way North" project. Along the way, he asked 35 people, "What does it mean to be American?" These are some of their answers.

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From the beginning America has been known for its freedom and democracy. Since then the US has done nothing but evolve. A big part of being American is being able to epress these freedoms by fighting for what we beleive in.

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How I define American identity is living in the land founded by both political and religious leaders, and being part of the American culture. As Americans we are viewed as the abolitionist who fights for what we believe is just. During the founding years of our nation we were led by thoughts of both the radicals and constrictive, religious and political leaders. Over the years we have come to reach a state of equilibrium between the opposing groups for a stable and functioning society.

Most Americans value civil rights. Compared to countries around the world, the United States is a younger country. From day one the United States has always been known for its freedom and democracy. Today's society is in a constant state of evolution. Every day there is new progress made somewhere; whether it is along the lines of technology, medicine or knowledge, somewhere in the world there are new advancements beings made continually. With America being such a young nation compared to other countries around the world we evolve at a rate much faster than most. If you look at the recent revolts over the past few years, they take place in regions where the governing limits the power of the people. In our society we the people limit the power of the controlling government. The Declaration of Independence opens with "We the people," including all of those who make up the nation. When the power is literally placed in the hands of those who it directly effects, by no means does this limit our people but pushes them to explore and question the unknown of the nation we control.

Even though our society can be broken down into different ethnicities, as a whole we are a culture of our own. A very unique bread of all our own, the values, dedication, hard work, and perseverance makes us American. With America being an infant country, we pull the strengths from all different regions of the world to build what we call the American identity. Regardless of where your blood has come from Americans come together to value hard work, perseverance, freedom, and determination to better their lives. Even though we all come from something different we all have the pursuit of happiness. All of this combined is why we call ourselves American and is what makes up the true American identity which we all can relate to.

To me, I am myself and no one else.I don't find following the role of someone else to be unique or enjoyable.I do what I enjoy regardless of other people's opinions. I personally would much rather become my own leader then follow someone else. Setting aside others' views on how I live my life allows me to live my life how I enjoy it, not how others think I should.

I enjoy a lively social life while still having my own personal alone time.One of my favorite pastimes is motocross or, anything a little on the edge mixed with speed. At the end of the day when the small things start to get to me, I always have my bike to hop on and just let everything go while I ride. When I am riding it allows me to have that time to myself and just enjoy what I am doing. Not having to worry about what else is happening in life with all of the stressors and responsibilities. Once I reach that point when I am relaxed I start to rewrap my head around all of the thoughts. I find that time important to clear my mind for that point in time. This allows me to regroup my thoughts and process them clearly.

One example that strikes my mind is from a few months back right at the start of my first semester at SUNY Fredonia. In early August I had experienced a loss in my family that really was quite mind-blowing, the death of my uncle and the next day the death of a friend. After the news was first relayed to me I didn't seem to believe it to be true. The first thing I did was grab my keys and load up my bike and take off to the local track for the rest of the day. That afternoon I spent what seemed to be like ten minutes riding my bike, when in reality I had been riding for hours. During that time I first managed to just lose myself and forget about everything. The very next day I spent the entire day on my bike again in attempts to straighten out what had seemed dreamlike and bring it back to reality. Over the second day, I used motocross as an escape to help clear my head, allowing it all too slowly once again be comprehended and accepted for what it's worth.

I believe that for myself motocross and bike are just two things that help me identify who I am. At times I am a bit outspoken; I have created enemies over speaking what is on my mind. To me it is very important to express your thoughts freely and clearly so others can understand your ideas. Sometimes I am not always right but when someone brings up a valid point and backs it up I respect it. When I was younger one of my teachers Mr. Frank Burst had told me, "Having enemies is not always a bad thing. It shows that over time you have stood up for something you believe in; consequently you will be taken seriously and never as a joke." I always try to keep that in the back of my mind during everyday life. By doing this I will never be pushed around and walked over for having a different opinion on something. I believe if you feel strongly about something you should stand up and support what it is you believe in. If you don't have the courage to stand up and support the belief you should not have the belief in the first place. I have learned that you sometimes have to act alone before others start to follow. Most of the time if you have a unique view on something there is someone who also has the same view, and if you act first others will follow. While I am not always the most open with discussion I am never afraid to support something I believe in. If it is something on personal side I most likely will not share it with you. When it comes to personal privacy I am respectful. If I feel the need to share something from my personal life it will be known. The odds are if it is something a bit more personal than I am not willing to share you will not clue there is something relevant there to relate to.

My own personal experiences I've had with American identity are something you cannot teach in a classroom setting. To me they are something that is much easier to comprehend with reflection on your own experiences as you grow up. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to travel all over the country and different parts of the world to experience culture first-hand. The American culture is truly unique, like no other. The American identity is full of perception and personal opinions. What your beliefs are something only you have to own up to. Not every family lives in a beautiful two-story home with a dog and a yard. Today the true American identity is becoming more of another radical. While we all have the same endpoint, individually we have our own pathways in the succession of achieving the goal at the end. Everyone takes in their own past experiences to create how they see topics differently. Psychology has proven that we all reflect back on our past experiences when it comes time to make a choice. In fear of committing the same mistake twice, we learn how use our experience to dictate our future actions.

Even though I am very proud of my Native American and Irish heritage it is not very often that I will identify as strictly that. I am sure that my ancestors before me have worked very hard of what they had become and shaped the lives of those after them, but I have been shaped by more than just my ancestors. I am one person who has been shaped by everything I am exposed to, from my heritage to those I come in contact with daily.

For me in my own experience from around the world the American lifestyle is something idolized by those who do not have it, and taken for granted by those who do have possession of it. I personally have spent the time over the years to sit down and talk with others from various parts of the world and hear their opinions about Americans as whole. The general consensus is that most do not appreciate what they have and how lucky they are. Over the well-invested time I have spent talking with others, I have heard several people mention radical gestures stating what they would do to just live the life of freedoms Americans have. I myself have been in both public and private schools going up and have had the chance to meet all different people. Some of my best friends are anything but a similar person--much more like opposites of each other. One of my best friends growing up would always tell me "you are so lucky that your parents are not divorced." Even though I would get into fights with my parents I would not have to deal with the stress of living out of two different homes with different sets of rules. I am come to understand how lucky enough I am to have only one place I call home. Another one of my good friends came from a very wealthy family with what most would call a very expendable income. This allowed me to witness the difference between someone who had too much and someone who hardly had enough. In high school he would buy new shoes every week simply because the other pair was dirty or scuffed. At the end of senior year for graduation he was handed the keys to a new truck while the rest of us got a pat on the back from mom and dad as they said, "we are proud of you, son."Most people would be happy with just having a car being me age, when he would not settle for a vehicle that was nothing less than what some would consider a small mortgage.

By being exposed to different extremes it has opened my eyes to how different the people of America are today but how as a whole we can come together as one country. One of my favorite questions I have always managed to ask over the years is "how would you feel if the government took away just half of your freedom and threatened your pursuit of happiness?" Oddly enough most people respond with very strong feelings of how they would feel obligated to stand against it and fight for it back. As Americans as a whole we are very fond of the privileges that we do have, even if we all do not use them to their true potential.Each individual has a unique place and without them, the country would not be the same. My own personal life experiences and those shared by others have helped develop who I have grown to become today.

Today I would identify myself as who I am and what I have become over the past 19 years. Everything from my hobbies, heritage, friends and family, personal characteristics, and past experiences have helped me find myself on what I would use to call my own personal identify. With my own personal identity discovered it can be used to contribute to another variety or blend into the personality that we have come to known as today's American Identity.

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How I define American identity is living in the land founded by both political and religious leaders, and being part of the American culture. As Americans we are viewed as the abolitionist who fights for what we believe is just.