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Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”, still is true!There is No Democracy! When Less Than 1% Control the Wealth, Production, and Price of Everything Produced and Consumed in the World!      In the present period of unfettered Capitalism, the pretense of democratic rule does not exist, except in the minds of ‘socialists’ like Bernie Sanders and the Labor Bureaucracy!   Capitalists view all struggles as struggles against capitalist rule! Transition demands immediately become revolutionary demands!    Therefore, any resistence to the attack of capitalists has to be organized by those that understand this!

Today, the United States Capitalists are Consolidating Themselves as the Supreme Capitalists!      Capitalism’s Gluttony is Demonstrated by It’s Quest for More and More Profits at the Expense of Humanity!     The Rise of Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now There is  Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity!   Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay! 

Capitalism as a Failed  System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming  Over 6 Decades Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Five Horsemen of the the Apocalypse, Spreading  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, and Misinformation! The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Still Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!

My name is Roland Sheppard, I am a retired Business Representative of Painters Local #4 in San Francisco. I have been a life long social activist and socialist. Prior to my being elected as a union official in 1994, I worked for 31 years as a house painter.

House painting was my vocation, but working for a better world has been my lifelong avocation. I became especially interested in the environment when I was diagnosed with cancer due to my work environment as a painter.

I have led a unique life. I am one, of the few people remaining, who was at the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was assassinated.

I learned how to write essays, when I first got a computer, in 1998.  Using the Internet and my word processor, I was able to put together all the medical legal arguments on my breakthrough workers’ compensation case in California, proving that my work environment, as a painter, had caused my cancer. During the course of the five-year struggle, I won a $300,000 settlement of my court case and, incidentally, I learned how to write.

My essays are my view from the Painters Ladder. I was in the words of Robert Tressell, a Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, a phrase that Tressell used, in his book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, to explain the exploitation of workers, under capitalism, who willingly sell their labor and donate the surplus value, which their labor produces, to the boss. (Hear A Lecture About The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist)

In my retirement, I am writing about my life experiences as a socialist, as a participant in the Black Liberation Movement, the Union Movement, and almost all social movements. My, essays are based upon my involvement in the struggle for workers democracy and freedom for all humanity. It is my hope that these essays, which I regularly update, when I discover more facts, will help future generations of Freedom Fighters.

My web page stands for equality of all people, These essays are written from my ground floor view as a participant in the Antiwar movement, the Black Liberation Movement, the Womens Movement and the struggle for workers democracy and freedom for all humanity. For Socialism!

Books  

The View from the Painter’s Ladder, A Collection of Essays by Roland Sheppard: A Lifetime Socialist Human Right’s Fighter

Lessons of the Montgomer Bus Boycot

The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement

The Government Assassinated: Malcolm X and Martin Luther KingMy Essays

Book Reviews: 

The Judas Factor by Karl Evanzz

The Media Monopoly

Perpetual War for Perpetual PeacePicture1

Editorials

Earth Day Editorial: Survival of the Human Species is Now at Stake!

Editorial: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!!!!

Editorial: U.S. Capitalism Can’t Get The Lead Out of the Environment!

Editorial: The Big ‘Entitlements’ Swindle: Workers Wages are Not ‘Entitlements’ — We Earn Our Benefits!

Edictorial: Trickle Up and Trickle Down

The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the Black Community and African American Oppression

Editorial: Gun Control for Whom?

Editorial: Greece

Editorial: Syriza A Popular Front

Editorial: The Teachers Unions Have Been Acting Socially Now is the time to Begin to Act Politically in Opposition to the 1%’s Political Austerity Progam!

Editorial: U.S. Capitalism Can’t Get The Lead Out of the Environment!

United States

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through. their ownership of the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! Every ‘Tax. Reform’ From President Kennedy has Been an incrase in taxes from the Poor,the Woking Class, and the Middle Class, to the Rich! —The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

The World is upside down. Unemployment over 26% and high and higher rents guarantee homelessness. The 1% and their Media Monopoly make the homeless victims criminals! The real criminals are the corporate landlords, the rest of the 1%, and their capitalist system!

The State of the Union and the State of Capitalism

State of the Union November 2020

To Make America Great Again! We Need to Remove The Working Class Misleaders Now!

Neoliberalism Has Led Us Down the Path to Fascism

Capitalism  Austerity Means More Wealth for the 1% and Pauperization of the 99%

My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers

The American ‘Left’ has become ‘Reformist’ — It No Longer Espouses or Stands For the Principle of Working Class Independence!

Neoliberalism Has Led Us Down the Path to Fascism

Obama Left Trump the Power to Declare Martial Law!

Occupy Wall Street Demonstrates The Need To Build An Organization of All Anti-Capitalist Forces!

The Onging Saga Of The New Bay Bridge Eastern Span Or How Corpoate Greed, Corruption, and Corporate Government Deregulation Demonstrate The Decline Of The U.S. Empire

9-11 World Trade Center Dust Cloud: How Many Will Die?!

Movie Review: 911 Dust and Deceit at the WTC

Inflation Calculator

Rober Baron Usury Capitalism in the United States

PG&E’s Christmas Rip Off Time To Nationalize Energy Corporations!

Pax Americana and The Failure of ‘Lesser Evilism’

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Never Again!

Agribusiness and the United States Government are Guilty of Depraved Indifference Murder!

Time To Nationalize The “Privately owned ‘Public’ Utilities”!: Instead of Nationalizing Their Debts— Nationalize Their Assets!

United States Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis: Lessons to be Learned

The United States ‘Principal of Preventive Strike’and The Establishment of Governmental Vigilante Justice’

The Degeneration of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)

US Government Declares War on West Coast Dockworkers

Robber Baron’ Energy Cartels Rip Off California

PG&E Robber Baron Redux

San Francsco: Explosion at Southeast sewage treatment plant: City’s safety violations exposed

Seattle IMF Environmental Protest

State of the Union November 2020

The Bernie Sanders Phenomenon

Obama Left Trump the Power to Declare Martial Law!

Obama’s Coup D’état — A Police State In Imerging

Occupy Wall Street Demonstrates The Need To Build An Organization of All Anti-Capitalist Forces!

Leagal and Extra Legal Terrorism in the United States

Let Elian Return Home!

Environment

Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!  After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!

‘The System’ Is Ruining Our Present and Collective Future

We Must Hold These Monsters to Account!

Human Society Stands At The Crossroads:Either Socialism Or The Destruction of Humanity

Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism We Don’t Need a Green New Deal! — We Need a Green Industrial Revolution!

For A Ecosocialist United Front!

Visions of Sustainable America

The Fight to End Global Warming

Fracking is An Exanple Of How Capitalism Has Lived Past Its’ Time

Agribusiness and the United States Government are Guilty of Depraved Indifference Murder!

Agribusiness/Factory Farms — Environmental/Pandemic Hazards!

Seattle IMF  Environmental Protest

Ocean Pollution— “Oceans Without Fish”

Oil Workers Killed by Company Neglect

Government Protects Monsanto — Not Your Right to Life!

Greenwashing the Philly Oil Explosion and Fire

Re: The EPA’s Science Office Removed “Science” From Its Mission Statement

Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks At Cancer and the Environment

Monsanto: “Playing God in the Garden”

Right to Life!

Greenwashing the Philly Oil Explosion and Fire (All is Safe as the Carcinogens Burn)

During Natural Disasters: Is ‘Looting’ a Crime? Is Survival a Crime? Who Are the Real Looters?

What Have They Done to the Rain?

Ocean Pollution— “Oceans Without Fish”

Oil Workers Killed by Company Neglect

There Are No ‘Safe Radiation’ Levels!

COP 27: Capitalists Have Chosen Ecocide!

During Natural Disasters: Is ‘Looting’ a Crime? Is Survival a Crime? Who Are the Real Looters?

Why Oil Companies Want California’s Water — All Fracked Up! Big Oil Fracking Our Environment— Fracking: Oil Shale Oil, Water and Politicians Do Mix

Oil Workers Killed by Company Neglect

Why Oil Companies Want California’s Water

The Burning of Southeast Asia

The Poisoning of Children & The Arrogance of Wealth

Visions of Sustainable America

The Fight to End Global Warming

Time To Nationalize The “Privately owned ‘Public’ Utilities”!: Instead of Nationalizing Their Debts— Nationalize Their Assets!

 Civil Rights

The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement

The Lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Government Assassinated Malcolm X and MLK

Why the Government  Assassinated Malcolm X  And Martin Luther King Jr.

Fusion TV’s: A First Look: Who Killed Malcolm X? — A More Subtle Assassination of Malcolm X  and The Man He Had Become When He Was Assassinated

MLK: The Other America Speech

Reparations and Capitalism

The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the Black Community and African American Oppression

Justice and Injustice in California: A Comparison Between Rich and Poor Communities

The Other San Francisco: Institutionalized Racism

San Francsco: Explosion at Southeast Sewage Treatment Plant

Terrorism in Charlottesville, Va.: Racism, Explotation, and Terror Has Always Been an Integral Part of Capitalism

Legal/Extra-legal Terrorism Has Been a Tool of the United States 1% to  Subjugate Black People

Book Review: Living Black History

The Ethnic Cleansing of New Orleans 2008: A Requiem

Visions of Sustainable America

Terrorism in Charlottesville, Va.: Racism, Explotation, and Terror Has Always Been an Integral Part of Capitalism

The Burning of Southeast Asia

The First Impeachment Trial: Andrew Johnson

Labor

Make America Great Again! We Need to Remove The Working Class Misleaders Now!

The Fall of the Trade Unions and the Present Condition of the Working Class!

The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States

The Sepctre of Fascism is Due to the Currrent Economic Crisis of Capitalism and its Constant Attack Upon the Working Class Since 1948, and The Default/Treachnrous Roll of the Trade Union Bureaucracy

Why I Celebrate May Day But I Do Not Celebrate Labor Day!

Justice and Injustice in California: A Comparison Between Rich and Poor Communities

San Francisco Labor Council Says Yes to the Gentrification of Hunters Point

SaSan Francisco: 1000 Nurses Rally For ‘Medicare for All

Wildcat Protest Against Employer-Union Partnership

Workplace Roulette: Gambling With Cancer

The Big Lie: ‘Labor Shortage’!

My Efforts to Prevent Painters’ Occupational Cancer

Why The Chicago Teachers Union Strike Was Won!

Why The West Virginia Teachers Won! Where to go from here?

Wildcat Protest Against Employer-Union Partnership

 World

Party Congress Backs Gorbachev’s ‘Reforms’

Israel As the United States Imperialist’s Police Force in the Middle East!

Today’s Cuba (1992)

Organic Farming — Cuba: “The Road Not Taken”: The Other Cuban Revolution

In Defense of Marxism: In Defense of the Fourth International!

Government Protects Monsanto — Not Your

Health, Education and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare

For Want of a Vaccine the World is Lost: Free the Vacine!

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