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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
Freedom Rider: Why the Shooting Will Continue “All the sound and fury about gun control is useless because this society demands that the slave patrol never disband.” Apparently there is nothing worse in America than the act of shooting white people. Ever since the latest attack at a Florida high school there has been talk of little else. The school shooting enveloped every other issue and was used to vilify Russia, the FBI, Bernie Sanders and the National Rifle Association all at once. One cannot watch a Youtube video without being subjected to the NRA’s public relations juggernaut meant to quiet a population which had forgotten about shootings for a while. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
Independent Journalist Corner: A Conversation with Elías Gonzalez “W.E.B. Du Bois. He really gave us the language; James Baldwin gave us the style.” On February 23rd and 24th in Philadelphia’s historic Church of the Advocate, The Saturday Free School organized an event titled Pan Africa and Pan Asia: A World United for Humanity. The Saturday Free School is a center of community organization and transformative political study, completely free to community members. The event kicked off The Saturday Free School’s celebration of revolutionary Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois’ 150th birthday and included a call to action to become involved in the School’s Year of Du Bois. It will also mark the release of the official newspaper of The Saturday Free School, The People’s Mirror. I spoke with the Saturday Free School’s Elías Gonzalez to discuss his involvement with these projects as well as his thoughts on US imperialism’s intensified assault on independent journalism. By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Good Panther, Bad Panther “Black revolutionary consciousness is merged with white and bourgeois Urban Nightmare images of Black ‘underclass’ ‘thugs’ and ‘Super-predators.’” “They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.” — Hillary Clinton, 1996 The latest Marvel Comics science-fiction movie “Black Panther” is stealth ruling-class propaganda, consistent with its production by the great manufactory of mass consent that is the American corporate entertainment complex. Did you expect something different? If so, why? Paul Street
Resource Sovereignty: Venezuela, Africa, and the Global South “The Congolese people in particular and Africans in general need to learn from their brothers and their sisters in the Global South.” In his September 20, 2017 speech at the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump threatened Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. In October, his administration indicated that it will not recognize the results of Venezuela’s presidential election on April 22 this year. In February, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated that the US would welcome and support a military coup in Venezuela. Telesur has reported troops of US allies Colombia and Brazil on Venezuela’s borders. By Ann Garrison, BAR contributor, Maurice Carney 
“Mass Incarceration” Reform as Police Endorsement “The reform of mass incarceration, as it has been absorbed by the cultural ensemble of the state and its distensions, endorses an expansion of policing logics.”“Mass incarceration,” “police brutality,” “school-to-prison pipeline,” and other terms of crisis have permeated the political theater of post-racialism and its apparent white nationalist aftermath. Such keywords of the early-21st century liberal-to-progressive critique of racist state violence form an increasingly shared vernacular for academic scholarship, policy reform, nonprofit campaigns, foundation grants, and ongoing dialogue and debate across various communities and publics. By Dylan Rodríguez
The FBI’s War on Black-Owned Bookstores “In Hoover’s eyes, black-owned bookstores represented a coordinated network of hate-spewing extremists.” In the spring of 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover announced to his agents that COINTELPRO, the counter-intelligence program established in 1956 to combat communists, should focus on preventing the rise of a “Black ‘messiah’” who sought to “unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.” The program, Hoover insisted, should target figures as ideologically diverse as the Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), Martin Luther King Jr., and Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. By Joshua Clark Davis 
Mass Incarceration for Profit: The 13th Amendment and National Oppression in the U.S. “Why was it necessary to include language in the Amendment which maintained involuntary servitude within the prison system?” This is a lecture which was delivered at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit on Sunday February 18, 2018. Abayomi Azikiwe presented the sermon or message for the day on the history and contemporary significance of mass incarceration and its link to the enslavement and continued national oppression of the African American people.By Abayomi Azikiwe
Libyan National Popular Movement Demands End to Interference by Foreign Forces and “Terrorists” “The National Popular Movement condemns the local, regional and international silence on the suffering of the inhabitants of Tawergha who had been unjustly and aggressively kicked out of their city.”Statement of the Libyan National Popular Movement on the Seventh Anniversary of the February Conspiracy By LNPM
Cyril Ramaphosa Has No Agenda Except Neoliberal Policies, Says NUMSA’s Irvin Jim “The South African Communist Party (SACP) and present leadership COSATU are lying to people that Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver socialism.” After Jacob Zuma’s resignation, his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa is the new President of South Africa. Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, national spokesperson of National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) in a discussion with Irvin Jim, general secretary of NUMSA talks about the change of guard in the country and the future of the working class politics. By Phakamile Hlubi-Majola
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Relaunches Neoliberalism “In spite of repeated rhetorical gestures from Pretoria to the contrary, the BRICS have amplified unfair and inequitable world order processes.” Cyril Ramaphosa’s soft-coup firing of Jacob Zuma from the South African presidency on 14 February 2018, after nearly nine years in power and a bitter struggle to avoid resignation, has contradictory local and geopolitical implications. Amidst general applause at seeing Zuma’s rear end, many immediately raised concerns arise about the new president’s neo-liberal, pro-corporate tendencies, and indeed his legacy of financial corruption and class war against workers given the lack of closure on the 2012 Marikana Massacre . By Patrick Bond
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Stockman: $1.8 Trillion in New Treasury Debt Will Hit Bond Pits “Like a Tornado” Investors have been whiplashed so far this week and it’s only Wednesday morning. On Monday, the Dow rocketed ahead by 399 points. On Tuesday, it plunged by 299 points. What changed investor sentiment so dramatically in 24 hours? David Stockman, the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan who blogs at Contra Corner, appeared on CNBC yesterday to size up the situation. Commenting on the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who gave testimony for the first time in his new role before the House Financial Services Committee yesterday, Stockman said he thinks Powell is “missing three giant skunks sitting on the wood pile.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare: