Saturday, March 31, 2018

THE PRICE OF "JUSTICE".


THERE IS NO JUSTICE ANYMORE - IF THERE EVER WAS.

 
YOU HAVE TO BUY POLITICIANS, LAWYERS, JURORS AND JUDGES IF YOU HOPE TO WIN A FAVOURABLE OUTCOME.


 
LOOK AT ALL THE MURDERS OF UNARMED YOUNG BLACK MEN BY WHITE POLICE OFFICERS. THE COURTS, THE JURIES, REFUSE TO FIND THE KILLERS GUILTY. AND THEY STILL TALK ABOUT "AMERICAN DEMOCRACY".

 
YOU DON'T HAVE TO HAVE A DARK SKIN TO FEEL THE AGONY OF THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF THOSE WHO ARE BEING MURDERED.

 
IF YOU ARE CAUCASIAN - OR THINK YOU ARE - TRY TO IMAGINE, IF YOU CARE ENOUGH TO TAKE A MOMENT - WHAT IT IS LIKE FOR A MOTHER TO WAKE HER SON UP IN THE MORNING AND SEND HIM OUT TO SCHOOL NEVER KNOWING IF HE WILL COME HOME ALIVE.

 
IF YOU ARE A JEW, YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RELATE. OUR PEOPLE HAVE HAD THIS EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE CENTURIES AND STILL, TODAY, HALF A CENTURY AFTER THE HOLOCAUST - IT IS STARTING AGAIN.

 
PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES "CHRISTIANS" HAVE BEEN MURDERING INNOCENT PEOPLE FOR A VERY LONG TIME.


THE CRIMES OF EVANGELICALS

HELP ME SAVE MY SISTER DEBBIE. MONTREAL POLICE REFUSE TO INVESTIGATE

 

QUEBEC - SHOCKING NEWS - WE MUST BUILD A WALL


SHOCKING NEWS 

"20 percent of businesses in Montreal contravene Quebec's French sign laws."


http://www.rcinet.ca/fr/2018/03/30/plus-de-20-des-commerces-montrealais-contreviennent-aux-regles-daffichages-en-francais/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook


OH, MON DIEU ! WE MUST LODGE A FORMAL COMPLAINT WITH GOD AND STOP THOSE HORRIBLE ANGLAIS FROM SPEAKING THE FOUL LANGUE.
 
KEBEC WILL HAVE TO CREATE A TASK FORCE LIKE THE AMERICAN "ICE" AND START DEPORTING THOSE ENEMIES OF L'ETAT.
 
PLEASE REPORT YOUR NEIGHBOURS IF THEY SPEAK ENGLISH. THIS MUST STOP. WE MUST NEVER ALLOW KEBEC TO BE AT PEACE WITH THE OUTSIDERS.
 
WE SHOULD BEGIN TO BUILD A WALL AROUND KEBEC TO ENSURE THAT THE CANADIENS AND CANADIENNES KNOW THAT KEBEC IS A SOVEREIGN STATE.
 
AND WE MUST GO TO WORK IMMEDIATELY ON THE NEXT NEVER-END-UM.
 
WE MUST NOT ALLOW FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN OUR WHITE FRANCOPHONES AND PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT PURE LAINE.
 
NOTE THAT WE MUST ALLOW SOME NOIRE PEOPLE FROM HAITI TO REMAIN IN KEBEC BECAUSE THEY SOMEHOW MANAGED TO LEARN TO SPEAK FRENCH A LONG TIME AGO. JUST IGNORE THE COLOUR OF THEIR SKIN.


Friday, March 30, 2018

STEPHEN HAWKING – HATE, GREED AND IGNORANCE WILL DESTROY US ALL.


AN EXCERPT FROM DEMOCRACY NOW.
 

AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Stephen Hawking said that President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement will cause avoidable environmental damage. This is Hawking speaking to the BBC ahead of a birthday conference in Cambridge, which was organized to mark his 75th birthday.
 
STEPHEN HAWKING: We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus with a temperature of 250 degrees, and raining sulfuric acid. Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.
 
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hawking took a number of scientific and political stands. In 2013, stirred up quite a bit of controversy when he joined the academic boycott against Israel. Can you explain his position there, Kitty Ferguson?
 
KITTY FERGUSON: Well, he had been in Israel previous to this. I don't have the dates at hand exactly. But his last visit there, he had asked to also speak to a Palestinian audience, which he did. And then, the next time he was invited to go, his first reaction was: "Good, this will give me another chance to speak out for the Palestinians." But then, colleagues and, I think, some of his Palestinian physicist friends said a boycott would probably be more effective. And at that point, he decided not to attend any more conferences there. As far as I know, he's turned down two invitations, maybe more, coming from the president of Israel. So, this has been a very strong cause for him.
 
I have to say that he's been accused of boycotting things in Israel and not boycotting things in other countries that also have civil rights problems, such as China. I have to say, I've never in all my years detected anything anti-Semitic about him. So I think any kind of accusations on those grounds are unfounded. I personally wouldn't write about anybody who was vocally anti-Semitic.

GAZA – THE BLOODY SANDS OF THE UNHOLY LAND


HATE IS THE GOD OF EXTREMISTS.


JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered along Gaza's border with Israel on Friday to vent their pent-up frustration in a protest that quickly turned violent, with Israeli forces killing 15 at the border fence.
 
As many as 30,000 arrived at tent encampments early Friday on Gaza's side of the fence to stage what was billed as the start of a peaceful, six-week sit-in. They were protesting against Israel's longstanding blockade of the territory and in support of their claims to return to homes in what is now Israel.
 
But as some began hurling stones, tossing Molotov cocktails and rolling burning tires at the fence, the Israelis responded with tear gas and gunfire. The Israelis said they also exchanged fire with two gunmen across the fence and fired at two others who tried to infiltrate into Israel.
 
Mohammad Obaid, an 18-year-old protester, said that holding a Palestinian flag in one hand and a rock in the other would be enough to get him killed by an Israeli soldier.
 
"We can bring back our lands with the power of guns and weapons, not with a march, a stone or a knife," he said after the violence erupted.
 
Friday's flare-up, ignited by isolation and economic deprivation, was the worst in years in the small Mediterranean enclave. In recent years, neighboring Egypt has joined Israel in the blockade, and the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank, has imposed sanctions. With the territory's economy collapsing, fears of an explosive backlash have mounted.
 
In December, some Palestinian leaders had called for mass protests when the United States declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel and said it planned to move the American Embassy there. Such demonstrations never materialized.

Instead, it was a call to protest over the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the land itself — that brought Palestinians out in huge numbers on Friday. And the question, as always, was whether confrontations would spread or escalate.
 
The Palestinians are pressing demands to return to lands that became Israel 70 years ago. A majority of Gaza's two million residents are either refugees of the 1948 war that broke out over Israel's creation, or descendants of those refugees.
 
Israel's blockade of Gaza, which it describes as a security imperative, is more than decade old and restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the Palestinian territory.
 
The protest came at a particularly charged time, as Jews prepared for the start of the Passover holiday on Friday evening, and as Palestinians observed Land Day. The day commemorates the events of March 30, 1976, when Israeli security forces shot and killed six Arab citizens of Israel during protests over the government's expropriation of Arab-owned land in northern Israel.

The Palestinian organizers of the protest bused men, women and children to tent encampments that popped up in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel. They intended for the six-week campaign to culminate in a mass march toward Israel, putting Israeli officials on edge.
 
Even before the protests started, Israel began a campaign to hold the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for any violence. The country's hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Gazans to keep away from the border in a post on Twitter in Arabic.
 
"The Hamas leadership is risking your lives," he wrote. "I advise you to get on with your normal everyday lives and not to participate in the provocation."'
 
Those tensions were also fed in recent weeks by Palestinian militants planting explosives along the border, with some cutting through the fence. Armed with knives and grenades, they set fire to Israeli military equipment — apparently testing Israeli preparedness and worrying local communities.

Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units and drones, and warning that it would act to prevent any breach of the border fence. B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, had warned that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be illegal unless soldiers' lives were threatened.
 
Most of the protesters in the tent encampments remained well away from the border fence and did not participate in the violence.
 
After the violence began, the Israelis declared the area surrounding Gaza a closed military zone, and said they had responded with riot-control methods and had fired toward the "main instigators." The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza put the number of deaths at 15; the Israeli military said it was not able to verify the number.
 
The idea for border encampments was initiated by a Gazan social-media activist, Ahmed Abu Artema, a political independent. It was quickly adopted by Hamas, which promoted the protest on its social media platforms and urged Palestinians to participate.

"Our will in achieving the actual return to our lands is more powerful than jet fighters and a gun," Mr. Abu Artema said by phone on Friday as he was on his way to the protest. "This march is rightful and will not be used and exploited for political agendas."
 
Before the main confrontation broke out, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that a Palestinian man, a farmer, was killed near the border zone early Friday by Israeli artillery fire — one of the 15 it reported dead later in the day, along with some 1,000 injured. The Israeli military's account said one of its tanks had fired on two Palestinians who approached the border and were "acting suspiciously."
 
"We are raising the flags of peace and have nothing to harm the enemy," said Hamed Jundiya, 63, an educational supervisor who erected his tent a few hundred yards from the border fence. Gazans are desperate, he said, "living without work, electricity and open borders."
 
The peak of the Gaza protest was supposed to take place on May 15, when Palestinians commemorate what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, the anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence and the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes through flight and expulsion.
 
Palestinians are protesting the more than a decade-long economic blockade of Gaza by Israel, and to demand a right of return for Palestinian refugees to the lands that became Israel 70 years ago.

This year, May 15 is expected to be particularly sensitive. It comes a day after the expected move of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a step that has provoked international criticism and Palestinian outrage. It also coincides with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month.
 
Organizers of the border protest had hoped to create an almost festival-like atmosphere to attract families, setting up portable washrooms and providing free food, water and Wi-Fi. But tensions in Gaza had been building for weeks.
 
Friday's protest also fed on Palestinian anger over the failing reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah, the rival, mainstream movement led by Mahmoud Abbas, whose Western-backed Palestinian Authority holds sway in parts of the West Bank.

COMMENTS

Mr. Abbas, whose forces were routed from Gaza during factional violence in 2007, has vowed to tighten economic sanctions on the enclave, where most of the population lives in poverty and lacks such basics as regular electricity.
 
Mr. Abbas declared a national day of mourning on Saturday.
 
Israel has fought three wars in Gaza over the past decade and has invested heavily in combating the threat posed by rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups, and from tunnels crossing under the border.
 
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Iyad Abuheweila from Gaza. Ibrahim El-Mughraby contributed reporting from Gaza.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-protest-clashes.html
 

Thursday, March 29, 2018

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR MURDERED. THE BED SHEETS ARE OFF.


Holocaust survivor killed inside Paris home..


Paris (CNN) -Two people have been arrested over the murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor in Paris that is being investigated as a suspected anti-Semitic attack, a French judicial source told CNN on Tuesday.


Mireille Knoll was stabbed 11 times in her apartment in the 11th arrondissement of Paris before her home was set on fire, according to government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux, who recounted the attack on Twitter. Her body was discovered in her apartment on Friday.


Two men are suspected of carrying out the attack, one of them being Knoll's 27-year-old neighbor, who was previously jailed for sexually assaulting the daughter of Knoll's domestic helper, the judicial source told CNN.


The other is a 21-year-old homeless man, who was known to police for acts of violence. The source did not name the men.


The two men have been indicted for "voluntary homicide because of the true or supposed religion of the victim, theft aggravated by three circumstances and degradation of the property of others by a dangerous means," the same source said earlier.


Knoll evaded the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, which was ordered by Nazi occupiers in 1942 and resulted in the mass arrest of 13,000 French Jews, according to French lawmaker Meyer Habib, Reuters reported.


Those detained were held at the Vel' d'Hiv cycling track in Paris before thousands were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.


On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron described Knoll's killing as a "dreadful crime" on Twitter and said: "I reaffirm my absolute determination to fight against anti-Semitism."


In a statement on Monday, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said: "All the necessary means will be mobilized so that we will figure out the motivations of the authors of this barbaric act, which reminds us of the darkest hours of our history. To attack a Jew, it is to attack France and the values that establish the foundation of the nation."


The murder comes a year after the killing of Sarah Halimi-Attal, 65, whose death is being investigated by prosecutors as anti-Semitic.


The French Jewish community, which at approximately 400,000 strong is the largest in western Europe, has seen an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years.


A photo taken on Tuesday shows an image of Mireille Knoll, heart-shaped cutouts, and police seals on the door of Knoll's apartment.


In 2015, four people were killed in a terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

In 2012, four people were killed, including three children, outside a Jewish school in Toulouse.


Knoll's murder was decried by Jewish organizations in France. In a statement, the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) condemned the "barbarity of this murder" and urged transparency from the authorities so "the reasons for this barbaric crime are known to all as soon as possible."


Haïm Korsia, the Chief Rabbi in France, also offered condolences on Twitter, saying: "Anti-Semitism kills. Let's never forget it."


CRIF has called for a rally in memory of Knoll in Paris on Wednesday.


This story has been updated to correct the identity of the woman who was sexually assaulted by Knoll's neighbor.


CNN

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

MURDER BY COP, U.S.A.


Police officers killed 1,129 people in 2017.
 
More people died from police violence in 2017 than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in action around the globe (21).

More people died at the hands of police in 2017 than the number of black people who were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow (161 in 1892).

Cops killed more Americans in 2017 than terrorists did (four). They killed more citizens than airplanes (13 deaths worldwide), mass shooters (428 deaths) and Chicago's "top gang thugs" (675 Chicago homicides).
 
Yet only 12 officers were charged with a crime related to a shooting death.
 
An extensive new study from Mapping Police Violence details the data for police violence. The collective tracks police shooting numbers and statistics, maps the incidents and compiles the data in real time. The site uses information from a number of sources, including Killed by Police, Fatal Encounters and the U.S. Police Shootings Database, to break down shootings by race, location, weapons used, and whether or not the victim was armed. It is a valuable tool used by academics, researchers and certain writers at The Root.
 
Aside from the fact that only 1 percent of the officers who killed someone were charged with a crime in 2017, some of the report's most interesting facts include the following:
 
Of the 534 killer cops Mapping Police Violence was able to identify, 43 had shot or killed someone before. Twelve had previously shot or killed multiple people.

Most of the people killed (718) were suspects in nonviolent offenses, were stopped for traffic violations or had committed no crime at all.

13 percent of people killed by cops were unarmed.

Most of the unarmed victims were people of color. Of the 147 unarmed people killed by police, 48 were black and 34 were Hispanic.

Black people accounted for 27 percent of the people killed by law enforcement officers. Of the unarmed victims of police violence, blacks made up 37 percent, almost three times their percentage of the U.S. population (13 percent).

Of the people who were unarmed and not attacking, but were still killed by cops, 35 percent were black.

95 people were killed when police shot at a moving vehicle, a practice that many say should be banned.

170 of the people killed were armed with a knife. in 117 of those incidents, police shot the person before trying any other method to disarm the person.

20 percent of the people who had a gun when they were killed were not threatening anyone.

Law enforcement training spends seven times more hours training officers on the use of firearms than on how to de-escalate situations.
 
Again, only 12 officers were charged with a crime after killing 1,129 citizens they were sworn to protect and serve. Here's to another banner year of police getting away with murder.
 
Can't you feel America getting great again?
 
 

The English newspaper The Guardian has collected and organized in a database reports of killings by U.S. law enforcement officers in 2015 and 2016, and found that they are incorrectly reported in over 50% of the cases. They also found that "the accuracy varied wildly by state, with just 17.6% misclassification in Washington [state], but a startling 100% in Oklahoma."[1].
 
Percent of each US state's population, ranging as high as 0.00002%, killed by law enforcement officers in the 22 months ending November 8th, 2016.

List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2018 (listed: 63)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2017 (listed: 124)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2016 (listed: 197)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2015 (listed: 847)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2014 (listed: 632)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2013 (listed: 344)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2012 (listed: 609)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2011 (listed: 173)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2010 (listed: 297)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2009 (listed: 72)
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States prior to 2009 (listed: 175)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States.


Anderson Cooper 360
Facebook, March 28, 2018.

"When you consider that 73 civilians have been killed by police bullets since 2015 and 70 of those were African American men, this is a national epidemic." Benjamin Crump, attorney for the Clark family, responds to the White House calling police shootings of black men a "local matter" https://cnn.it/2Gjz0Wl.

TRUMP'S “ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY” DOESN’T CARE WHO THEY KILL

 
It's no secret that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt disagrees with the overwhelming evidence tying human emissions of greenhouse gases to increasing global average temperatures, sea level rise, and a host of other problems for humanity.
 
He has, after all, moved to scuttle the Obama administration's regulations that would limit such emissions from power plants, ordered the EPA's climate change websites to go dark, and advocated for a televised debate on climate science, among other actions.
 
Now comes word that on Tuesday, EPA officials distributed talking points about climate science to its top public affairs staff throughout the country, providing eight talking points about the agency's work on helping America adapt to a warming planet.
 
SEE ALSO: In court, oil company admits reality of human-caused global warming, denies guilt
 
The talking points, first reported by the HuffPost, are contradicted by both the agency's previous climate science website as well as a federal climate report that EPA scientists contributed to.
 
The email including the new talking points was sent on behalf of Joel D. Scheraga, the agency's senior advisor for climate adaptation — a program that, ironically, Pruitt has sought to eliminate.
 
Kate Marvel
I think it's only fair that if climate scientists have to explain AGAIN why we're warming the planet, physicists should have to explain how come stuff falls down https://twitter.com/brady_dennis/status/979044838594236416 …
 
According to the email in the HuffPost report, which the EPA confirmed to them as authentic, two of the bullet points outright contradict and distort the findings of mainstream climate scientists, saying:
 
"Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner. The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue."
 
"While there has been extensive research and a host of published reports on climate change, clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it."
 
A federal report published in November, known as the Climate Change Special Report, states clearly and unequivocally that the burning of fossil fuels for energy and other human activities cause global warming. 
 
The report — which is the most which is the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to climate science findings — states (original emphasis included):
 
This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
 
For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
 
(In the language of the report, "extremely likely" means a greater than 95 percent chance.)
 
Presumably, these inaccurate EPA talking points will now be parroted by EPA public affairs officials when they deal with the media and the public, since the email was sent to communications directors and regional public affairs chiefs. That could, in effect, spread Pruitt's climate denial around the country under the guise  of a respected government agency.
 
Pruitt has often said it's uncertain how much global warming is natural versus human-caused, a point included in the email that was leaked to the Huffington Post.
 
However, the November 2017 federal report specified the exact range of what the human contribution is, something that previous climate studies had not done.
 
It found that human activities have likely contributed between 92 percent and 123 percent of the observed temperature change from 1951 to 2010. (The contribution may be above 100 percent because, absent human activities, it's likely the climate would be cooling over time.)
 
"The likely contributions of natural forcing and internal variability to global temperature change over that period are minor," the dozens of scientists who wrote that report concluded.
 
"This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization," the report found.
 
The EPA's now archived climate change website was also unambiguous about what is causing global warming, stating that "humans are largely responsible for recent climate change." It also explains that global warming "... is caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
 
For Pruitt, conceding the reality of human-caused global warming would necessitate pursuing a radically different policy agenda at the EPA. To date, Pruitt's approach has been to try to dismantle the EPA, particularly its work on climate change but also in other areas — the science be damned.
 
These bullet points mark the spread of his climate science denial beyond EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the agency's offices around the country.


https://mashable.com

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

THE REAL COST OF MEAT

Toronto Pig Save  
"My friend lives next door to a sheep farm. She said you don't hear much from the sheep, It's only when the lambs are taken that they become noisy.
Not only is heartbreaking to see the fields without the lambs knowing where they've gone, it's even more heartbreaking hearing the cries from their mother's, some frantically search the fields, some wonder looking a bit lost and some just stand continually crying.
She said she hears them crying even 4 weeks after their babies were taken." 
- Terri Firmston.
Comments
Phyllis Carter - DEVOTED MEAT EATERS ARE SELFISH, THEY WANT TO BE ALLOWED TO ENJOY THEIR BLOODY FLESH WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT WHAT IT COSTS THE HELPLESS ANIMALS. I CRAVE MEAT, BUT IT HURTS ME TERRIBLY TO KNOW WHAT SUFFERING AND LOSS IT IS TO THE ANIMALS, SO I HARDLY EVER EAT MEAT ANYMORE. 

Monday, March 26, 2018

THE BLOOD OF THE MURDERED CHILDREN CURSES THE NRA


In a historic day of action, more than 800 protests were held Saturday urging lawmakers to pass gun control. In Washington, organizers say 800,000 took part in the March for Our Lives, which was organized by students who survived the February 14 shooting massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In New York, another 150,000 took to the streets; 85,000 rallied in Chicago; 55,000 marched in Los Angeles. Tens of thousands also rallied in Atlanta and Pittsburgh. In Washington, D.C., survivors of gun violence - from Parkland to Chicago - shared the stage to decry the power of the National Rifle Association and to demand an end to the violence. We air highlights of the speeches.
 
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: In a historic day of action, there were more than 800 protests on Saturday urging lawmakers to pass gun control. In Washington, D.C., alone, organizers say up to 800,000 people took part in the March for Our Lives, which was organized by students who survived the February 14th shooting massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In New York, another 150,000 people took to the streets; 85,000 rallied in Chicago; 55,000 marched in Los Angeles. Tens of thousands also rallied in Atlanta and Pittsburgh. And 20,000 people gathered in Parkland, Florida.
 
Demands from the students include a ban on semiautomatic weapons that fire high-velocity rounds; a ban on accessories that simulate automatic weapons; the establishment of a database of gun sales and universal background checks; the closing of gun show and secondhand sales loopholes; to allow the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, to make recommendations for gun reform; and raise the firearm purchase age to 21; and to change privacy laws to let mental healthcare providers communicate with law enforcement.
 
Well, today we air voices from Saturday's March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. Speakers at the march included survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting, as well as young people from around the country who have been impacted by gun violence. We begin with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Cameron Kasky, who survived the school shooting on February 14th.
 
CAMERON KASKY: To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to "sit down and stay silent, wait your turn," welcome to the revolution. It is a powerful and peaceful one, because it is of, by and for the young people of this country.
 
My name is Cameron Kasky. Since this movement began, people have asked me, "Do you think any change is going to come from this?" Look around. We are the change. Everybody here is standing with the future of our society. And for that, I thank you.
 
My generation, having spent our entire lives seeing mass shooting after mass shooting, has learned that our voices are powerful, and our votes matter. We must educate ourselves and start conversations that keep our country moving forward. And we will. We hereby promise to fix the broken system we've been forced into, and create a better world for the generations to come. Don't worry, we've got this.
 
The people of this country now see past the lies. We've seen this narrative before. For the first time, the corrupt aren't controlling our story. We are. The corrupt aren't manipulating the facts. We know the truth. Shooting after shooting, the American people now see one thing they all have in common: the weapons.
 
Politicians, either represent the people or get out. The people demand a law banning the sale of assault weapons. The people demand we prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines. The people demand universal background checks. Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.
 
On February 14th, tragedy struck my hometown and my school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Duque Anguiano, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang and Nicholas Dworet all lost their lives in less than seven minutes. And I saved Nicholas for the end, because today is Nicholas's birthday. Nicholas, we are all here for you. Happy birthday. Their families endured great pain. Many others were injured. And thousands of young people, my classmates, were forced to become adults, and were targeted as adults. We have to do this for them. We must stand beside those we've lost, and fix the world that betrayed them.
 
This doesn't just happen in schools. Americans are being attacked in churches, nightclubs, movie theaters and on the streets. But we, the people, can fix this. For the first time in a long while, I look forward 10 years, and I feel hope. I see light. I see a system I'll be proud of. But it all starts with you. The march is not the climax of this movement, it is the beginning. It is the springboard off of which my generation and all who stand with us will jump into a safer future. Today is a bad day for tyranny and corruption. Today, we take to the streets in over 800 marches around the globe and demand commonsense gun laws.
 
MYA MIDDLETON: I'm Mya Middleton, and I'm 16 years old. I'm here because I have been personally affected by the lack of gun control, and I believe guns have taken over the minds of individuals who want an easy way out of their dilemma. Chicago goes through this every day, and you don't realize how much of a toll it is taking on our city, until you see it in our communities, you see it on someone you know, you see it on someone like me.
 
Freshman year in high school, I wanted to get some things from the store for my mom, because she was sick. I remember pulling on all these clothes and going out in 10-or-so-degree weather. It was so cold. Get to the store, grabbing all this stuff, thinking, "Maybe she needs this, maybe she needs that," and finally getting into line.
 
This guy in front of me all of a sudden gets upset because he didn't have enough money to pay for the things that he wanted to buy. He gets out of line and starts trashing the store, throwing everything over the floor, pushing carts, just making a fool out of himself.
 
So, finally, when I check out, I walk to the door, and I'm ready to go, when I hear a scream and a bang. I turn around and see he's grabbing all this stuff, pushing it into every crevice of his body, trying to grab as much as he can—when he finally turns to me.
 
He comes towards me, and I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't talk. I couldn't think. All I remember is seeing dark jeans coming towards me. He pulls out this silver pistol and points it in my face, and said these words, that to this day haunt me and give me nightmares. He said, "If you said anything, I will find you." And yet I'm still saying something today.
 
Guns have long scared our children, corrupted our adults and publicly silenced our government. Guns have become the voice of America, and the government is becoming more negligent by this predicament by the day. Join me in sharing my pain and my anger. Help us by screaming to the government that we are tired of crying for help to a group of people that have turned their backs on us, despite their reassurance of making our country safer.
 
AMY GOODMAN: Sixteen-year-old Mya Middleton from Chicago, speaking at the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. We'll return with more voices of protest in a moment.
 
AMY GOODMAN: "Stand Up for Something," performed by Andra Day and Common on the main stage at Saturday's March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
 
More than a million people, in Washington, around the country and around the world, rallied Saturday for the March for Our Lives, calling for gun control, following the Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead. We return to highlights from the youth-led rally in Washington. This is student David Hogg, who survived the shooting in Parkland.
 
DAVID HOGG: Ninety-six people die every day from guns in our country, yet most representatives have no public stance on guns. And to that, we say, "No more!" We are going to make this the voting issue. We are going to take this to every election, to every state and every city. We're going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run, not as politicians, but as Americans, because this—this is not cutting it.
 
When people try to suppress your vote, and there are people who stand against you because you're too young, we say, "No more!" Now is the time to come together, not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans, Americans of the same flesh and blood, that care about one thing and one thing only, and that's the future of this country and the children that are going to lead it.
 
Now, they will try to separate us in demographics. They will try to separate us by religion, race, congressional district and class. They will fail. We will come together. We will get rid of these public servants that only served the gun lobby. And we will save lives! You are those heroes.
 
SARAH CHADWICK: My name is Sarah Chadwick, and I'm a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This here, $1.05. When you take 3,140,167—the number of students enrolled in Florida schools—and divide it by 3,303,355—the amount of money Marco Rubio has received from the National Rifle Association—it comes out to $1.05. Is that all we're worth to these politicians? $1.05? Was $17.85 all it cost you that day, Mr. Rubio? Well, I say one life is worth more than all the guns in America.
 
JACLYN CORIN: My name is Jaclyn Corin, and I am proud to say that Parkland is my home. Parkland is the heart of this movement. But just as a heart needs blood to pump, my hometown needs the alliance of other communities to properly spread this message. We openly recognize that we are privileged individuals and would not have received as much attention if it weren't for the affluence of our city. Because of that, however, we share the stage, today and forever, with those who have always stared down the barrel of a gun. I actually have a special guest for you guys, so I'm going to come bring her up.
 
YOLANDA RENEE KING: My name is Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough, and that this should be a gun-free world, period.
 
Will you please repeat these words after me? Spread the word!

 
EDNA LIZBETH CHÁVEZ: Hola, buenas tardes. My name is Edna Lizbeth Chávez, and I am from South Los Angeles, California, el sur de Los Ángeles. I am a 17-year-old senior at Manual Arts High School. I am a youth leader. I am a survivor. I have lived in South L.A. my entire life and have lost many loved ones to gun violence. This is normal, normal to the point that I have learned to duck from bullets before I learned how to read.
 
My brother, he was in high school when he passed away. It was a day like any other day, sunset going down on South Central. You hear pops, thinking they're fireworks. They weren't pops. You see the melanin on your brother's skin turn gray. Ricardo was his name. Can y'all say it with me?
 
CROWD: Ricardo!
 
EDNA LIZBETH CHÁVEZ: I lost more than my brother that day. I lost my hero. I also lost my mother, my sister and myself to that trauma and that anxiety. If the bullet did not kill me, that anxiety and that trauma will. I carry that trauma everywhere I go. I carry it with me in schools, in class, walking home and visiting loved ones.
 
And I am not alone in this experience. For decades, my community of South Los Angeles has become accustomed to this violence. It is normal to see candles. It is normal to see posters. It is normal to see balloons. It is normal to see flowers honoring the lives of black and brown youth that have lost their lives to a bullet.
 
How can we cope with it, when our school district has its own police department? Instead of making black and brown students feel safe, they continue to profile and criminalize us. Instead, we should have a department specializing in restorative justice. Policymakers, listen up. Arming teachers will not work! More security in our schools does not work! Zero-tolerance policies do not work! They make us feel like criminals. We should feel empowered and supported in our schools. Instead of funding these policies, fund mentorship programs, mental health resources, paid internship and job opportunities.
 
ALEX WIND: My name is Alex Wind. I'm a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In the wake of the tragedy on February 14th, we, as students, as youths, decided that if adults weren't going to take action, we would. No gun-related legislation has been passed in this country since 2008, 10 years ago. Since 2008, there have been at least 95 mass shootings in this country.
 
People believe that the youth of this country are insignificant. People believe that the youths have no voice. When Joan of Arc fought back English forces, she was 17 years old. When Mozart wrote his first symphony, he was 8 years old. To those people that tell us that teenagers can't do anything, I say that we were the only people that could have made this movement possible.
 
Together, we will use our voices to make sure that our schools, churches, movie theaters and concerts, and our streets become safer, without having them feel like prisons. If teachers start packing heat, are they going to arm our pastors, ministers and rabbis? Are they going to arm the guy scanning tickets at the movie theater? Are they going to arm the person wearing the Mickey Mouse costume at Disney? This is what the National Rifle Association wants, and we will not stand for it!
 
ZION KELLY: My name is Zion Kelly, and I'm a senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy here in Washington, D.C. I'm here to represent the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of students who live every day in constant paranoia and fear on their way to and from school.
 
At this moment, please raise your hand if you have been affected by gun violence, to honor the ones you have lost. Today, I raise my hand in honor of my twin brother, Zaire Kelly. Zaire was shot on September 20th, 2017, on his way home from a competitive college counseling after-school program called College Bound. Zaire had the personality that would light up the room. He was energetic and full of dreams and aspirations. He was our team captain on the track team. He was running for student government president, and he was a youth councilmember. He aspired to be a forensic scientist and attend Florida A&M University for undergrad. Zaire was also the best dresser I knew, with the most style. He was a person, a leader, an inspirer, not just another statistic.
 
I was in contact with Zaire while he was walking home, texting him and calling him all through the night. About 20 to 30 minutes went by, and I became worried, because the walk alone doesn't even take 30 minutes. I left my room to ask my mom where he was, until I saw flashing blue and red lights outside my window. I told my parents that there were police cars and an ambulance on our street. We rushed outside, discovering that it was Zaire.
 
That night, on September 20th, a robber with a gun was lurking on my streets for hours. On my way—on my walk home, he attempted to rob me, but I ran. Though he had an ankle monitor on and he was supposed to be monitored by the police, he was still able to obtain a gun illegally and lurk in my streets and take my brother's life. He shot my brother in the head. Once we arrived to the hospital, he was pronounced dead.
 
From the time we were born, we shared everything, including issues. I spent time with him every day, because we went to the same school, shared the same friends, and we even shared the same room. Can you imagine how it would be to lose someone that close to you? Sadly, too many of my friends and peers can. This school year alone, my school lost two students to senseless gun violence: Paris Brown and my brother Zaire Kelly.
 
NAOMI WADLER: My name is Naomi, and I'm 11 years old. Me and my friend Carter led a walkout at our elementary school on the 14th. We walked out—we walked out for 18 minutes, adding a minute to honor Courtlin Arrington, an African-American girl who was the victim of gun violence in her school in Alabama after the Parkland shooting.
 
I am here today to represent Courtlin Arrington. I am here today to represent Hadiya Pendleton. I am here today to represent Taiyania Thompson, who, at just 16, was shot dead in her home here in Washington, D.C. I am here today to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don't make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don't lead on the evening news. I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential.
 
It is my privilege to be here today. I am indeed full of privilege. My voice has been heard. I am here to acknowledge their stories, to say they matter, to say their names, because I can, and I was asked to be. For far too long, these names, these black girls and women, have been just numbers. I am here to say "Never again" for those girls, too. I am here to say that everyone should value those girls, too.
 
People have said that I am too young to have these thoughts on my own. People have said that I am a tool of some nameless adult. It's not true. My friends and I might still be 11, and we might still be in elementary school, but we know. We know life isn't equal for everyone. And we know what is right and wrong. We also know that we stand in the shadow of the Capitol. And we know that we have seven short years until we, too, have the right to vote.
 
So I am here today to honor the words of Toni Morrison: "If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it." I urge everyone here and everyone who hears my voice to join me in telling the stories that aren't told, to honor the girls, the women of color who are murdered at disproportionate rates in this nation. I urge each of you to help me write the narrative for this world and understand, so that these girls and women are never forgotten. Thank you.
 
TREVON BOSLEY: My name is Trevon Bosley, and I'm here with the BRAVE Youth Leaders of St. Sabina. And I'm here to speak on behalf of Chicago's youth, who are surrounded and affected by gun violence every day. I'm here to speak for those youth who fear they may be shot while going to the gas station, the movies, the bus stop, to church, or even to and from school. I'm here to speak for those Chicago youth who feel their voices have been silenced for far too long. And I'm here to speak on behalf of everyone that believes a child getting shot and killed in Chicago or any other city is still a not acceptable norm. Most importantly, I'm here to speak on behalf of my brother Terrell Bosley, who was shot and killed while leaving church, April 4th, 2006.
 
Just to give you guys a few stats from Chicago, since 2006, there been more than 5,850 people shot and killed in Chicago. And since 2012, there been more than 16,000 people shot. Now, let me repeat that one more time. Since 2006, there been more than 5,850 people shot and killed in Chicago. And since 2012, there have been more than 16,000 people shot in Chicago. These stats are not just numbers in a speech. These are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. On a societal proportion, these are lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians. And more than anything else, these are lives cut short due to senseless gun violence.
 
I must add, though, Chicago's violence epidemic didn't start overnight. It was caused by many problems that we are still not dealing with to this day. When you have a city that feels it's more important to help pay for a college and sports complex, rather than fund schools and impoverished communities, you have gun violence. When you have a city—when you have a city that feels we need more Divvy bikes in downtown Chicago for tourists, rather than more funding for workforce programs that get guys off the streets real jobs, you have gun violence. When you have an Illinois state governor, Bruce Rauner, who feels that funding anti-violence programs is, I quote, "non-essential spending," you have gun violence. When you have elected officials who feel that getting a few extra dollars from the NRA is more important than their actual constituents, you have gun violence. And when you have a president that would rather constantly talk about and belittle Chicago's violence, rather than send funds or resources, you have gun violence.
 
It's time to care about all communities equally. It's time to stop judging some communities as worthy and some communities as unworthy. It's time to stop judging youth that look like me or my brother, that come from impoverished communities, any different than anyone else. It's time for America to notice that everyday shootings are everyday problems.
 
MATTHEW SOTO: My name is Matthew Soto. And at the age of 15, I sat in my high school Spanish class, while my sister Victoria Soto was being slaughtered in her first grade classroom in Newtown, Connecticut. On December 14th, Vicki went into school to make gingerbread houses with her first grade students before their holiday break. How many of you can remember doing that, the anticipation of having to wait all week, to have to be on your best behavior? But that was cut short. They didn't get to make gingerbread houses, because gunfire rang out in the hallway.
 
Too many times has gunfire been ringing out in the hallways of schools across this country—too many schools, too many churches, too many movie theaters, too many neighborhoods, too many homes. Enough is enough. We do not have to wait for others to make us safe. We need to do it ourselves.
 
America, I am pleading with you to realize this is not OK. We do not have to live like this. Many of the students that were in fourth grade when my sister was murdered are now freshmen in high school. Five years ago, this happened. Five years ago, and no change has come. Today, over 400 students, teachers and parents of Newtown families are here marching with us today.


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