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      "title": "Must All Good Things Come To An End?",
      "body": "<center>https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/8761AA32-3EE3-4DB2-B333-F221FE5593FF.jpg</center> <br/>(in response to \"<a href=\"https://medium.com/@RepChrisStewart/if-you-love-the-internet-set-it-free-92fc10613618\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">If You Love The Internet, Set It Free</a>\", by Rep. Chris Stewart)\r\n\r\nI’d like to open by thanking you for your service to both the Second District of Utah and the United States. I would also like to apologize, in advance, for any points herein that may be delivered with a bit of anger. It’s important to be honest as we look at this problem — and if I’m to be entirely honest, this “Neutrality” conversation is really getting under my skin.\r\n\r\nThe premise of your Opinion Piece on the subject is, if I may summarize, “Change is good”, and you would be right in many respects. You use Uber and Lyft as prime examples of how this has been good for consumers, but I’m not so sure it has. And as tempted as I am to go through a long list of the obvious flaws in that analogy, I’m going to pass.\r\n\r\nWe keep pretending that maintaining Net Neutrality is a complex issue. It isn’t. It doesn’t need an analogy. What it does need is a real conversation about the real issues and what we need as users of the internet is simply to understand why and how it works the way it does. But before I make my very short statement on that subject, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the elephant in the room.\r\n<h2>Trust?</h2>\r\nIn my estimation, Free Market Capitalism requires three basic parts in order to work for the consumer. a) Companies who’s goal is to bring consumers the highest quality product for the best value, b) Companies with the same values to compete with these companies, and c) Well informed consumers who are willing to go without even the most basic services when these companies don’t make good on their promises.\r\n\r\nThe truth is that we don’t have any of these things. And we haven’t had them in telecommunications for some time.\r\n\r\nAs I write this, me, and thousands of Brighthouse Networks Customers in my area are suffering from intermittent packet loss in our Internet connections, which the company’s infrastructure support have confirmed, but I am the only customer who reported the problem. And I, and thousands of others are still paying for flawed services. I’ve had similar issues, sometimes for years, with broadband services provided by AT&amp;T. Neither company has ever been willing to issue a credit for services they couldn’t provide. Even when they understood that the issue was as a direct result of flaws in their networks.\r\n\r\nNow you may be thinking, “Why not simply use someone else?” The answer is simple. These are the only two companies providing service to my address and we require broadband services to our home for business. See?\r\nThere is nothing “free market” about this arrangement.\r\n\r\nAdd to this the fact that cable companies rarely allow their services to overlap and you begin to realize that this is all very much by design.\r\nBut lets get to the really important points:\r\n<h2>The Telecommunications Act fo 1996</h2>\r\nThis was to be the legislation that changed everything, allowing for less regulation, more competition and vast improvements for consumers.\r\nThe reality of this legislation was VERY different from the pictures that were painted at the time. Only weeks after Bill Clinton signed it into law, AT&amp;T started buying up other companies, including some new companies that were created when it sold off entire divisions.\r\n\r\nYou see, the bill actually redefined what it was to be a monopoly and essentially stated that all any big telecom had to do to avoid being seen as one was to sell use of its resources at wholesale prices to new entrants to the market. So as great as the idea sounded, it was terrible for consumers but absolutely fantastic for shareholders. Even Verizon, at that time a new Brand, purchased all the Bells and stands today as the only real threat to AT&amp;T. So who, other than these two giants, did this legislation really help?\r\nThis was labelled “Consumer Legislation” but was really just a big money deal to give big telecom more, well, everything.\r\n\r\nNow before you say that this was Clinton’s big mistake, this bill was brought to the floor by Pressler (R-SD) and passed the Senate 81–18 and the only Republicans to vote “ney” were McCain and Packwood. This was a republican bill.\r\n\r\nWhat I’m trying to illustrate here is that the people can NOT rely on our representatives in this regard. We have justifiable trust issues that render much of the political discourse entirely invalid.\r\n<h2>Neutrality is only one of the founding principals of the Internet. What about the others?</h2>\r\nSo many are confused about what Neutrality actually means. Here is a simplified explanation:\r\n\r\nNet Neutrality simply means that data, once on the internet, travels at the same speed. While data providers like Netflix, Apple or Google pay for incredibly fast connections TO the internet, their data, once ON the Internet, is treated the same way as everyone else’s. So when you pay your ISP for a specific speed of service, this is only the speed of your connection to the Internet itself. Once on the Internet, the email sent from the School Kid to his Math Teacher travels the net at the same speed as a request from the president of a major financial institution to his VP in a state prison.\r\n\r\nThis isn’t new. This is the way it has always been. It is the single truth of the Internet that has made it so powerful for business of all sizes and the people at large.\r\n\r\nWhat Cox Cable and AT&amp;T wanted was to do away with this basic rule of the net, granting them the power to slow the data of providers that didn’t pay to access the “fast lane”. They’re basically asking for the power to legally extort providers, and in so doing, the people.\r\n\r\nRepresentative Stweart. How can you, in good conscience, advocate for something so blatantly sinister? Perhaps you have trust in these companies, but you’re not there to represent yourself. You’re there to represent the people, and whether they know it or not, there is no trust to be had. These companies have established, time and time again, their willingness to use your office and the offices of other legislators to take what they want. This is no different.\r\n\r\nRecently Cox chose to “rate limit” data originating from Netflix citing harm to their network performance as the reason. This was data Cox customers not only requested but were paying for. I’m sure you’re familiar with this. The moment Netflix paid them, data rates returned to normal.\r\nIn order for your argument to be correct, you would have to be able to say that Cox, on receiving that payment, was able to make vast improvements to their networks in order to suddenly and immediately address their performance issues. We both know that isn’t what happened, but it does raise a good question…\r\n<h2>Settlement-Free Peering — Neutrality’s lesser known litter brother or, The other White Meat</h2>\r\n<blockquote>In computer networking, <strong>peering</strong> is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the users of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free, “bill-and-keep,” or “sender keeps all,” meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers.\n</blockquote>\r\nYou can read more on this <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here</a>.\r\n\r\nI’m not going to venture into this any deeper than to say this:\r\nI’m not convinced that you understand the nature or gravity of the Telecomunication Industry’s request. They do not seek to improve. They’re not struggling with value or an inability to improve their “failing infrastructure”. They’re not the good guys who are trying to do right by their customers.\r\n\r\nThis, like the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is an attempt at theft by way of slight of hand. This isn’t the first time they’ve done it and it won’t be the last. But make no mistake, these companies are asking you to fundamentally change the nature of the Internet and grant them total and complete power over all public information and its delivery. They are asking you for the unfettered ability to pick winners and losers, but as bad as all of this really is, it’s not the most offensive part of this sad story.\r\n\r\nThe most offensive part is that you’re falling for it.\r\n<h2>Lets wrap this up</h2>\r\nRepresentative Stewart:\r\n\r\nI’m sure your heart is in the right place, and I’m sure you truly believe that what you’re advocating is, in fact, best for the people. <strong>It is not.</strong>\r\n\r\nIn your article, you said, “Applying century old regulations written for monopoly era phone companies to the web is destined for a lawsuit and consumers will suffer in its wake.”\r\n\r\nBy that logic, we’ve probably outgrown the 10 commandments. If we’re to take into account The Telecommunications Act of 1996, the neutering of Glass Steagall or the fact that we’re even considering this, we certainly appear to have outgrown “Thou Shalt Not Steal”.\r\n\r\nIf you’re truly interested in seeing advancements, lets start talking about doing away with bad legislation, not old legislation. Lets talk about adding real competition in telecommunications and start by repealing the Telecom act of ‘96. Lets concede that the Internet has become a utility for millions of Americans and protect it. Lets spur on innovation not by empowering complacent giants further but my pledging to push them forward by creating opportunities for new business and new, innovative entrants to the industry.\r\n\r\nThank you.\r\nRespectfully,\r\nJon C. Hardison- <br /><center><hr/><em>Posted from my blog with <a href='https://wordpress.org/plugins/steempress/'>SteemPress</a> : https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/2015/03/01/the-end-of-neutrality/ </em><hr/></center>",
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      "body": "<center>https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/Elenore-Inga.jpeg</center> <br/>Soaking in the massive gains of the Republican Party this week, contemplating all potential outcomes, I feel a shift in gravity. It is as if my head and shoulders are a bit heavier than they were just yesterday. And while this weight is entirely unfamiliar to me, I know, almost instinctively, that it isn’t new. At first I attributed it to the doom and gloom of leftist pundits or maybe the constrictive grins of powerful men recently gifted near absolute power. But on further contemplation I believe it’s something else. Something much easier to live with. While the grins of the powerful are undeniable, the weight and darkness and despair I feel isn’t sore looser syndrome. It’s the weight of responsibility.\r\n<h2>The incessant Repeating</h2>\r\nThe threats to capitalism and democracy and freedom are obvious and exposed so we don’t fear them. We gleefully celebrate our freedoms by bathing ourselves in self congratulatory expressions like “…the best country in the world.” We belittle those that question that greatness. We insist on ignorance and contempt. We hold high the weakest of us and shout, “See? Look what we’ve created!”, without concern for how or why and our concern runs no deeper than cost. We call each other idiots while defunding education. We fear each other as criminals while we privatize our prisons. We quantify our freedom in the diversity of weapons available to us and assail any that stand against stop and frisk, brutality, profiling or simple bigotry, whether based on race, religion, or economics. But no part of this is new.\r\n\r\nSo why do we continue to find ourselves back here? Why, when left unchecked, do we inevitably refuse to (Look out! Barage of profanity inbound…) progress, evolve, or learn from our past misdeeds? What is it about American society that makes it so easy for us to be hateful — so ugly to one another?\r\n<blockquote>The answer is as it has always been. Power. Whether fashioned from ink, or airtime, or financial or political influence… the answer is always power.\n</blockquote>\r\nWe survive by our interests. The larger the interest the greater the power. The greater the power, the greater the number of souls dependent on it to survive, maintain their lifestyle, or thrive. There is opportunity in our division. So much so that everyone of note has written on the subject.\r\n\r\nUnited We Stand, The Four Oxen and the Lion, Aesop\r\nAnd if a house be divided against itself…, New Testament — Mark 3:35\r\nAnd Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation… — Mathew 12:25\r\n\r\nThe list goes on.\r\n\r\nIn fact, the only thing longer than the list of writings that go to this truth is the number of times divisive tactics and language have been used to divide us. It is the first tool of every war, and present in every dark spot in world history. But while the people of many nations have managed to build a resistance to division, America continues to be a place where it thrives, as evidenced by FOX and MSNBC, our politicians and even our religious leadership, all quick to point a finger at the cause of all our strife.\r\n\r\nThe loose, Mexicans, the unemployed, liberals, conservatives, Blacks, Whites, stupid people, smart people, hoarders, survivalists, the mentally ill, the Jews, Corporations, educators, science, religion, doctors, unicorns and the gays. We can’t forget the gays. We’re led to believe that getting rid of, or rendering powerless, any of these groups will somehow improve our Union and it’s patently false!\r\n\r\n“America is a Christian Nation and we must protect those values!” is no answer to expanding equality!\r\n\r\n“Social Safety Nets are for Lazy Moochers and no one else.” is no answer to protecting Social Security, Medicare ACA or Unemployment insurance.\r\n\r\nJust as…\r\n\r\n“Go Green!” is no answer to our Energy concerns.\r\n\r\n“Give us your guns!” is no answer to Columbine.\r\n\r\nJohn Dickinson, Aesop and Jesus all agree. Our strength lies both in our diversity and acceptance (not tolerance) of one another.\r\n\r\nHaving said all this, I’d like to leave you with a thought. Actually it’s a speech.\r\n\r\nIt was October 31, 1936 and Franklin Roosevelt addressed a Nation. I’m leaving you with the speech because it applies right now. In fact, reading it leaves one with the impression that corporate interests have only just figured out a way to undo all we’d done. To push us back to a time when they ruled, absolutely.\r\n\r\nThanx for reading\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>“Senator Wagner, Governor Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity—it goes to humanity itself.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: “Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>The banners of that crusade still fly in the van of a Nation that is on the march.</em>\r\n<em>It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways—those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations—peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace—peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance —men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o’-the-wisp.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, “This can be changed. We will change it.”</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Their hopes have become our record.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America’s working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse- it is deceit.</em>\r\n<em>They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law?</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises.</em>\r\n<em>Our vision for the future contains more than promises.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation, to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em> For all these we have only just begun to fight.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, for the wiping out of slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control, for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful work to the pauperism of a dole.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Again — what of our objectives?</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only just begun to fight.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our ideals, spell also peace with other nations.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by war are not on our side in this campaign.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>“Peace on earth, good will toward men”—democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith-altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all that is best in our Nation.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to say with the Prophet: “What doth the Lord require of thee — but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” That is why the recovery we seek, the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our Nation.</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>That is the road to peace.”</em></p> <br /><center><hr/><em>Posted from my blog with <a href='https://wordpress.org/plugins/steempress/'>SteemPress</a> : https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/2014/11/09/the-new-deal-again/ </em><hr/></center>",
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      "title": "Reflections of a Scary Black Kid from Brooklyn",
      "body": "<center>https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/08/liljon.jpeg</center> <br/>It’s been a hard week to be an American. Hell, it’s been a hard week to be human. It opened with the death of arguably one of the funniest, kindest, most uplifting, positive men most of us have ever known (in that way we all know famous people), and then spiraled downward from there. And as sorry as I am for what can only be viewed as a week of massive losses for our collective, I honestly think there are things we can all learn from it and healthy questions we should all be asking, whether internally or right out in the open.\r\n\r\nI’ve been doing a lot of that. I’ve been examining my life, and my reactions to things. I’ve been examining simple things like my posture, my persona and trying to figure out who I appear to be to those who don’t know me. I’ve been thinking about Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Mike Brown of Ferguson, MO, and the 25 year old man killed just days later in LA.\r\n\r\nI’m black. I mean, I’m not “really black”, like so many have said to me over the years, but still, I’m black. But my life, much like my background, has been a fairly equal mix of middle-class Urban American living, and quintessential ghetto life. My first memories of life happened on Pacific Street in Brooklyn, New York, which was by no means a bad neighborhood, but it was on the edge of the projects. I had friends in the projects, and because back then you let your kids out to play and really didn’t know where they went, I spent a fair amount of time in and around the projects. But as young as I was, I knew I wasn’t safe there, so I didn’t do it often.\r\n\r\nAs I got older it got more dangerous for me. It was always hard to tell if it was because I was simply becoming more of a threat in some way I didn’t quite understand, or because my steadily increasing age increased the likelihood I’d maybe had a little cash or something else of value. What I knew for sure was that the indifference to my being was fading. I started getting mugged and threatened on occasion. Nothing to run home and cry over… just weird.\r\n\r\nAs the financial situation worsened at home, the need to reduce expenses forced us to move from the community were I’d been since I was 2 years old, to a new community. I didn’t know anything about it but its name, Fort Greene, and whenever I’d say these words to friends their reaction was always the same. “Oh snap. You dead fool!” I was only about 10. They’d never really explain why I was going to die. They’d all just say it with a fair amount of confidence and start their, “It’s been nice knowing you.”, speech. I didn’t take it seriously, at first. Anyways…\r\n\r\nMy first week in Fort Greene, I met the other people in our building, a small brownstone broken up into 4 rental apartments. There was a nice black family of three on the top floor, us, just below them, a gay couple below us, and a hispanic woman and her two kids (both much younger than I) on the ground floor.\r\n\r\nThe baby’s name was Peanut. He was about 14 months old when we moved in. The girl, about 4, was a beautiful, long haired Puerto Rican named Leukemia. Her mother heard it someplace and liked the sound of it. This was almost the high point of my time in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.\r\n\r\nFort Greene was black. Pacific Street, where I’d grown up, was full of all kinds. There was the Bohanan girls, who were white and black, just like me and their dad wasn’t around, also just like me. They were the closest things I had to sisters. Then there was Carla from around the corner. Her father, Chocolate, was my drum teacher and my role model growing up. (A black man.) and his wife Berril who I think was a school teacher and quite white. There was Maya. She was one of my first loves and lived right down the road from Carla. She was Jewish and a total fireball. At one point my mother and I actually rented the top floor of their brownstone. Not long after we moved out, Maya’s dad came out of the closet and moved to Greenwich Village with his new partner…\r\n<blockquote>This was the life I’d known. There was quite literally no such thing as race. But not in Fort Greene.\n</blockquote>\r\nAfter we settled in, I did what I always did. I went out to explore. “Hey kid! Give me that bike!” and “Get yo Puerto Rican ass outta here!”, were some of the things I’d hear regularly. It became very clear, very quickly, that I was going to need to make a change if I was going to make it in this place. Looking back on it, I never asked why everyone was so fucked up. I, an outsider, had moved into what was clearly their hood, and I’d just have to learn the ropes.\r\n\r\nAfter a few months, I found some kids around the corner. They’d heckle me and give me shit every time I rode by. They’d even chased me a few times to get my bike or beat my ass. I’d always ride away faster than they could run. One day I decided to call their bluff. “Give me that bike bitch!” So I stopped. What were they going to do? I knew where they lived. After a short confrontation and a little pushing it was over. A beautiful girl came running out of their building. “Stop messin’ with him! Oh, and he ain’t Puerto Rican you dumb asses! I seen his momma!” That night I ate dinner in their house. A boxing match blasted in the background and everyone sat around the table firing questions at me one right after the other. “Why you talk like you white? Are you rich? You talk Spanish?” The kid’s parents would ask a few questions here and there too. “You like my daughter, don’t you?”\r\n\r\nThat night she walked me home (to make sure I was safe) and gave me a few tips on making it in her neck of the woods. “Listen. You gonna be a’ight here. Ain’t no body gonna hurt you. But if you wanna stop’em from fuckin’ whi’chu?, You gonna need to show’s you can’t be fucked with. Next time you feel like someone’s thinking ‘bout taking you, you just look’em right in they face! Don’t stop and don’t say nothin’. But don’t stop looking’ neitha.”, she said. “Cuz at the end of the day, if he wants it bad enough, there ain’t nothing you can do that’s gonna stop’m. But if he don’t? Nigas’ just need to know you ready. That’s all. They need to know whatevah’s’ coming is gonna cost’m and that’s it.” That lesson got me through a lot of tough times and I’ll always be happy I had it.\r\n\r\nA year later, things got even worse for my mom and I. Her addiction to drugs and inability to show up to work forced us out of our place in Fort Greene and into an emergency move to Chelsea in Manhattan. West 16th street, to be exact. We moved in with my mom’s new boyfriend, Willy. He was the superintendent of the building he lived in and was going to put us up for a while until an apartment became available for us to rent. Willy was an incredibly talented guitarist. I don’t mean he was really good. I mean he was so good, he’d play a bar or two and even if you knew nothing about music, you knew there had to be something terribly wrong with him. Sometime so wrong it justified the meager existence he’d barely managed to cut out for himself. Those faults would become very evident in the coming days, months and years.\r\n\r\nI was 12, and going into my first year of middle school for the second time. The years of obvious drug use by my mother had taken their toll in more ways than one. But this wasn’t Fort Greene, and while I was scared and nervous, there was something liberating in getting a completely new start. My new School was I.S. 70, and it, much like my first home on Pacific Street, served a diverse community, both racially and economically. And this start would come with the advantage of all I’d learned in Fort Greene. There’d be no more running for me. I was ready to face everything that came my way, and I did just that.\r\n\r\nI.S. 70 was also a lot like Pacific Street in that it bordered the projects, so there was never a shortage of altercations and few days without threats. Every day was a test of your resolve, your bravery and your ability to abandon all sanity in favor of the promise of reprieve that was granted every time you simply put someone down. I got good at it. I got very good at it, but it was rarely physical. It was about having the ability to look an ass whooping in the eyes and laugh. And then grab the biggest guy in the crowd by the shirt, pull him to you, unblinking, and simply say, “bring it.”, with all the fire and intent of a mass-murderer in your eyes, like I learned in Fort Greene… “This is gonna cost you.” It didn’t hurt that my actual fighting skills were pretty impeccable at that age. Skills I was all too happy never to use.\r\n\r\nIt was also these early years in the city that taught me about the Police. New York’s battle with the corruption and abusiveness of its Police force is the stuff of legend. It took decades to clean it up enough to be useful and even longer to make it something the average citizen was proud of. We (kids) were scared to death of them. We’d never say it out loud. After all, being scared of anything was worse than dating a girl in the grade behind you, or screaming at the sight of a spider. When the Police came, we ran. We weren’t doing anything wrong and had nothing to hide, but we all knew, on a cellular level, that none of that mattered. Once a cop had you, it was all a matter of luck. Their word carried all the weight. Their will was the only thing that steered the interaction. Their mercy was the only reason you’d go home. This was the case even for the best and nicest of officers. They had all the power and we knew they were free to turn any way they wanted, on a dime, without cause, warning or care and it was simply better to run than risk it.\r\n<blockquote>I think these were the feelings I needed to remember to try to make any sense of what’s gone on this week. Sense to me, anyway.\n</blockquote>\r\nThere are people who are simply scared of black people. It’s not a race thing so much as it is a feeling of being threatened. They might wonder, “Why is that guy working so hard to look so tough?”, or, “Why is she looking at me like that?” Others wonder, “Why are they running if they didn’t do anything wrong?” And even more might simply say, “They’re animals.”, or “Fuck’em. They get what they deserve.” No. No the fuck we don’t.\r\n\r\nI’m generalizing here, so try not to take this as bigotry. It isn’t meant that way, but the average Black American grew up with horrifying stories of what was done to our people at the hands of White Americans and raised in an environment where we were baptized in fear. We feared the cops, many feared white people, and even more feared their neighbors. But we couldn’t say anything. Not to our mothers or fathers or siblings or friends. No, instead we did what people do. We followed the example of the survivors before us. Society thinks the number one reason broke black kids get into the drug game is because they see a way to make some fast cash. I don’t think so. You know what that king pin had that I wanted? He wasn’t scared of a damn thing! He didn’t even have to deal with trouble. Something went down and his “boys” took care of it.\r\n\r\nWho do you trust when there’s no one you can trust? Who do you confide in? Who do you run to when no one wants you? The truth is, you simply do the best you can. Sometimes you even get lucky or surprise yourself and do better than the best you can. But most of the time, you survive. Nothing more and nothing less.\r\n\r\nSo next time you feel intimidated, try to understand that it’s not about you. I haven’t lived in the ghetto for decades and people still tell me (as recently as yesterday) that I look like I’m going to kill someone. I don’t even know I’m doing it! What is in my heart is very different from what is on my face, but it’s not because I’m broken. It’s just the remnants of an old survival skill I used to need. <br /><center><hr/><em>Posted from my blog with <a href='https://wordpress.org/plugins/steempress/'>SteemPress</a> : https://j-o-n.myisleofwrite.com/2014/08/14/reflections/ </em><hr/></center>",
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