Norma McCorvey And The Story Of 'Roe Vs. Wade'

Also I think a lot of young people on the left are growing up without understanding "you can and will make mistakes in life and who you are is defined by how you move forward from them" and instead are doing things like "I must always be up the latest social justice language and must always avoid mistakes lest i be ostracized and cancelled for it so here is everything I support just so you don't think I don't support it, and I'll just feel bad and guilty for every mistake when I do make them and all this makes me a good person". It's like congrats you made Catholic guilt but woke

The Federal Reserve

NO. 1

Today, we’re going to asking some questions all focused on the Federal Reserve. Who created the Federal Reserve? What is its purpose? And how does it continue to control us, poor and middle-class folks, today? The Federal Reserve Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. Generally speaking, it has five general functions, ‘‘like conducts the nation's monetary policy to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S. economy; promotes the stability of the financial system; promotes the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions; fosters payment and settlement system safety and efficiency and promoting consumer protection and community development.

NO. 2

The first myth about the Federal Reserve, is that it is controlled by the federal government, hence the name. But in actuality, it is a private institution whose shareholders are commercial banks, hence the term, ‘bankers bank’. The word ‘federal’ is designed deliberately to create the impression that it is a public entity. Indeed, misrepresentation of its ownership is not merely by implication or impression created by its name. More importantly, it is also officially and explicitly stated on its website: ‘The Federal Reserve System fulfills its public mission as an independent entity within government. It is not owned by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution” [1]. To unmask this blatant misrepresentation, the late Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s, described the Fed in the following words: ‘Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

NO. 3

Henry Ford quoted, ‘It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” In simplistic terms, the Federal Reserve basically controls the money supply, and average citizens, like you and me, work for any valuable company, and in order to receive those paychecks, you used where only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual cash on hand and available for withdrawal. This is called fractional reserve banking, and it is done to theoretically expand the economy by freeing capital for lending. Every single person on this planet is working under the Federal Reserve.

For more information, please watch the documentary ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, based on Thomas Piketty's best-selling book, on Netflix. They give a widespread selling of how far back the plans to implement the Federal Reserve goes.

Seneca Village

NO. 1

The history of Seneca Village is fraught with history, opportunity, and endurance against racism and white supremacy. In 1825, a ‘‘25-year-old African American shoe shiner named Andrew Williams bought land in the middle of Manhattan, two years before slavery was abolished in New York. More free Black Americans followed, fleeing the disease and discrimination of downtown, and together they created the bustling settlement. The village was home to the most significant number of African American property owners in NY before the Civil War. Because those black men possessed property, they were allowed to vote. Irish and German immigrants could also live there, and white and black churchgoers often side-by-side.

NO. 2

As you can see, Seneca Village was a thriving community, living far from the dense population of downtown, despite NY's abolition law in 1827, discrimination severely limited the lives of the African-American populace. Seneca Village provided access to more space from the unhealthy and crowded conditions of the city. ''By 1855, there were 52 houses in Seneca Village. On maps of the area, most of the houses were identified as one-, two-, or three-story houses made out of wood. Archeological excavations uncovered stone foundations and roofing materials, indicating that they were well-built. Some of the houses were identified as shanties, meaning that they were less well-constructed. Land ownership among Black residents was much higher than that in the city as a whole: more than half owned property in 1850, five times the property ownership rate of all New York City residents at the time. Many of Seneca Village's Black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts in the Little Africa neighborhood by Greenwich Village.''

NO. 3

Unfortunately, Seneca's village’s demise had to do with the construction plans of what the settlement is today, Central Park. William Cullen Bryant, ‘‘the editor for the New York Evening Post at the time, and Andrew Jackson Downing, an English landscape architect, started the park project together. The Special Committee on Parks was formed. They surveyed possible sites before selecting Seneca Village, even getting NYS officials to legislate the Central Park Act in July 1853, authorizing a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land and creating a fund to raise money and donations for the plan. Before the acquisition of Central Park, Seneca Village was referred to with derogatory and racial slurs. Advocates for Cental Park used the media to describe Seneca Village and other communities like them as ‘‘poor squatters living in shanties’’.

NO. 4

The residents fought against the city’s planning as they were legally entitled to do so as landowners. But the Central Park Act set aside the 775 acres of land in Manhattan from 59th to 106th streets between 5th and 8th avenues to create the country’s first major landscape public park. ‘‘There were roughly 1,600 inhabitants displaced throughout the area. Although landowners were compensated, many argued that their land was undervalued. Ultimately, all residents had to leave by the end of 1857.’’ The settlement was discovered in 2011 when archaeologists from Columbia University uncovered artifacts such as an iron tea kettle, a roasting pan, a stoneware beer bottle, fragments of Chinese export porcelain, and a small shoe with a leather sole and fabric upper. This article is dedicated to the people of Seneca Village and other ‘Little Africa’s’ settlements all over this country that historians and archaeologists are finding in recent times who have continuously fought against the struggles of race, class, and economic opportunities that this country’s governmental systems continuously try to sweep aside.

Artifacts and Archives: The Rediscovery… | Central Park Conservancy (centralparknyc.org)

Oh my gosh. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! REALLY?! 😂😂😂😤😤😤

Proelium

“Jason.” Nico appears suddenly beside him. “Come spar with me.”

“Um, okay? But don’t you always practice with Will-”

“”We’re not currently talking,” Nico says shortly.

“Oh, I-” Jason flounders for a minute. Nico and Will bicker all the time but they have never had a fight fight (as far as he knows but he keeps very close tabs).

“Are you coming or not?” Nico growls impatiently, tapping his foot impatiently against the floor of the pavilion.

“Uh, yes?” Jason responds.

Nico turns around and stalks off and he hurries to follow him. He resolves not to think about Will and Nico’s fight. It’s probably their first big one, they’ll be alright in a day. ♦ 

They are not alright in a day.

The next day Jason happens to be talking to Percy nearby when Will storms past Nico, shoulder checking him on the way, without even a backward glance. Nico scowls at his back.

Jason and Percy exchange nervous glances. ♦ 

Two days later, Percy happens to be in the infirmary when Nico limps in with a gash on this right calf.

Will drags him to a bed, shoves everyone out of his way while getting supplies, and sets to work on Nico, his mouth shaped into a thin line.

Nico’s eyes are soft but he doesn’t say anything either.

Percy has never seen anyone being able to stitch someone up so aggressively but perfectly. ♦ 

Piper walks up to Nico four days later and says firmly, “You need to do something about Will.”

Nico scowls at her. “No.”

“He almost shot one of the Demeter kids today! He excels at archery. This is getting out of hand, Nico. You’re angry and moody all the time. Even the Hecate kids are afraid of breathing too loud when they walk past you. The Apollo cabin lost two points in the last cabin inspection because Will has been sulking and didn’t bother to clean, and everybody’s afraid of being the target of his surliness.”

“No.”

   Piper tries Will next.

“He’s so sad, Will. He keeps walking around like a dejected puppy.”

Will glowers at her. “Go away.”

Piper throws her hands up in the air exasperatedly. “What even happened between you two?”

“You can ask him.” He juts his chin towards their right, and she turns to see Nico walking in their direction.

“Come on-” She whirls around back to Will, but he’s gone. ♦ 

Annabeth walks up to him the next day and states, “Fix it.”

Nico glares at her.

Annabeth stares back, unimpressed.

“I want it done by tomorrow.” She walks away.

Nico escapes to Camp Jupiter that evening.     Reyna spots him almost as soon as he arrives.

“No,” she says shortly. “Go back home, Nico.”

Nico glares at her.

She shrugs. “Annabeth iris-mesaaged me and told me you were running from your problems.”

“I don’t want to go back,” he mutters petulantly.

“You’re going to have to, eventually. You look awful and he, he makes you happy, you know he does.”

He sighs unhappily. If Reyna’s saying something, he must look as pathetic as he feels.

Reyna’s eyes soften. “Stay for today, go back tomorrow. Let’s go join Hazel.”

She ruffles his hair and he swats her hand away, scowling. She laughs. ♦

“Fuck you,” is the first thing Will has to say to Nico when he comes back. 

He towers over him, glowering. “Seriously? You can’t deal with this so you run away? You complete and utter ass.”

“Well, you could have said something! Don’t act like you didn’t sulk like a kid too,” Nico yells.

“Yes, I did! Because you were wrong and were being unreasonable but you didn’t have to run away, you prick. I don’t love your opinions but I do love you!” Will shouts.

Nico stills.

“You do?” he asks, voice small.

“Hera knows why, but yes, yes I do.” Will’s voice has gone down, and his shoulders slump.

Nico grins at him, before reaching forward and grabbing a handful of Will’s shirt to pull him closer.

“I do too, you know,” he says softly.

“Duh,” Will says. Nico can see the beginning of a smile at the corners of his mouth so he leans forward to kiss it.

Will responds eagerly, and Nico can’t believe he went a week without this, without running his hand through Will’s hair, without feeling his hands all over him, without feeling like every part of his body is on fire, but so relaxed that he basically feel himself melting.

They have to break apart because they’re both smiling too much.

“I guess I can live with the fact that you like Hawkeye more than the Hulk,” Nico says, smiling.

Will grins at him.

“That’s what you were fighting about? I can’t believe you!” a voice shouts from behind him and they both turn to look at Jason, Piper and Percy standing.

“Uh, yeah. What did you think?” Will says, voice confused.

Piper and Percy continue to look at them with something akin to horror on their faces.

Jason glares at them, hissing, “I am a 100% done with this shit.” He stomps off.

MAG-FUCKING-NIFICENT!!!

The Origins of the date of Christmas

Yesterday was Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone! This is the holiday to be surrounded by family and friends and to look back on how far you’ve come, especially in this hellish year. Every year we celebrate this festive holiday on the 25th of December, but I’m curious, where did the celebration of Christmas originate? How did it become decided that this was when we would celebrate Christmas?

It’s a valid question! It is a fact that liturgical tradition, no matter how lauded, is no longer seen in a reliable manner any longer. The skepticism comes from the sixteenth-century Reformation, which inspired Protestant and particular Calvinist scholars to attack the ecclesiastical calendar. ‘‘As recent research has shown, it is the context of these early modern inquiries into the history of the liturgical year, which were often permeated by inter-confessional polemic, that the two basic approaches to understanding Christmas’ origins that continue to characterize the twenty-first-century debate on the subject first germinated. For lack of more appropriate labels, these two approaches may be referred to as ‘History of Religions Theory’ (henceforth: HRT) and the ‘Calculation Theory’ (CT). Roughly speaking, proponents of HRT interpret Christmas as a Christianized version or substitute for pagan celebrations that took place on the same date as the Roman Calendar, the most widely cited example being the birthday of Sol Invictus on December 25. By contrast, adherents to CT find evidence that the birth of Christ was determined independently, by resource to certain types of chronological speculation.’’

It is well known that a lot of Christianity is used to subvert or covert most of the old world’s celebrations. The holidays, like Halloween, Easter, Spring, and Christmas were all re-used from pagan traditions. German philologist Herman Usener (1834-1905) was one of the pioneers in the modern academic study of religion. ‘‘According to his view, the celebration of Christ’s birth in midwinter was essentially the heritage of a syncretistic sun cult, which already bore traces of an incipient ‘pagan’ monotheism. The central turning point in this story comes from the year 274 CE when the emperor Aurelian allegedly elevated the original sun god Sol Invictus to the supreme deity of the Roman empire and established his cult on December 25. Threatened by the persistent popularity of these rituals among newly baptized Christians, the early Church was moved to incorporate traces of the cult into its own liturgy and thus re-interpreted the annual ‘birth’ of the sun at the winter solstice as the birth festival of Christ.’’

This is what I'm waiting for!!

New ‘AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON’ clip from premiere released!

This could seriously be a whole video essay series cause many folks raised in the Global North (Western-oriented countries and communities) will frame all history as a matter of black/white events when, in actuality, history is informed by our indigenous, immigrant, and diaspora pasts and their present day afterlives.

I'll keep my thoughts about executive director Pinkett's spiritual bypassing on private for now, BUT I will say this: Egypt is a part of Africa and Africa belongs in our garden of history cause there are enough miracles, memories, and magic across our African histories and their cultures that we don't have to produce miseducated docuseries that try to pass as Pan-African history pieces or afrofuturist reimagings (when in actuality they are just reinventing bougie versions of well-worn imperial histories).

Egypt is a part of Africa and Africa belongs in our garden of history.

Everyone needs to know that over turning abortion is rooted in racism. No they don't want black and brown women to suffer (anymore than usual). They want more white women to be forced to carry to full term so that they (white people) don't loose the numerical majority and become a minority in America.

But please know, black and brown women will be affected by this. Black and brown women have some of the highest cases of maternal death during child birth. Experiencing complications more frequently which is a direct side effect of the racist health care system. White Republicans don't care about that the real goal is for them to increase the population of white people through any means necessary.

Please look up The Birth Dearth by Ben J. Wattenberg. (Spoiler alert its eugenics. It's all eugenics.)

Here is our girl Jane Elliot talking about it.

Here is an entry article to read about as well

Medium

The Birth Dearth: The Sad but True Reason Why What’s Happening in Texas Right Now Shouldn’t…

It was always going to end this way