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Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”
In the US’s “Phony Wars,” the Military-Industrial Complex Is the Only Winner Overseas, the United States is engaged in real wars in which bombs are dropped, missiles are launched, and people (generally not Americans) are killed, wounded, uprooted, and displaced. Yet here at home, there’s nothing real about those wars. Here, it’s phony war all the way. In the last 17 years of “forever war,” this nation hasn’t for one second been mobilized. Taxes are being cut instead of raised. Wartime rationing is a faint memory from the World War II era. No one is being required to sacrifice a thing. By William J. Astore
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.
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico
Images of the Day:
Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. — Frederick Engles, The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man
Videos of the Day:
Trump’s Tariff Travesty Will Not Re-Industrialize the US Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs will only make it more difficult for US producers that depend on these resources, while also initiating trade retaliation from trade partners says Michael Hudson
Stephen Hawking: Fighter for Progressive Politics Scientist Stephen Hawking spoke out against wars, called for action against climate change, and defended socialist programs.
U.S.:
The Deutsche Bank-Trump Connection: Why House Probe Abruptly Shut Down It now appears that a major contributing factor to the abrupt shutdown of the Russia-Trump probe by the House Intelligence Committee was a fear that the Committee was getting too close to Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bank’s dealings with Russia. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Going Down With the Bad Ship U.S.A. “All that it can offer to the emerging nations of the world is a bad example and the threat of annihilation.” There is no mystery to the ideological collapse of U.S. ruling class politics under late stage capitalism and imperial decline. Simply put, the corporate duopoly parties have nothing to offer the masses of people except unrelenting austerity at home and endless wars abroad. A shrunken and privatized Detroit serves as the model for U.S. urban policy; Libya and Syria are the scorched-earth footprints of a demented and dying empire. The lengthening shadow of economic eclipse by the East leaves the U.S. Lords of Capital with no cards left to play, but the threat of Armageddon. By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report executive editor
How the Iraq War Destabilized the Entire Middle East As we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, which we are still paying for in so many ways, it is important to remember the misuse of intelligence that provided a false justification for war. It is particularly important to do so at this time because President Donald Trump has talked about a military option against North Korea or Iran (or Venezuela for that matter). Since there is no cause to justify such wars, it is quite likely that politicized intelligence would once again be used to provide a justification for audiences at home and abroad. by Mel Goodman
Climate of Fear In The Atlantic, November 1, 2007, Cornell West wrote that “Niggerization is the wholesale attempt to impede democratization – to turn potential citizens into intimidated, fearful and helpless subjects.” He went on to suggest that post 9/11, there had been a similar process inflicted on the wider American population. “Like the myopic white greed, fear, and hatred that fueled the niggerization of black people, right-wing fear, and hatred have made us all feel intimidated, fearful and helpless in the face of the terrorist attacks.” As the fear of imminent terrorist attacks has faded, we have found new ways to live in fear. by John Davis
The Trump Administration Is a Government of Billionaires and Their Sycophants The GOP lackeys are eager to do the bidding of whichever oligarch will give them the most money. A few years back, former President Jimmy Carter told me that, because of Citizens United and its predecessors (like the Buckley decision in 1976), we’re no longer a democracy, but instead, “an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery.” By Thom Hartmann
Washington Breaks Out the “Just Following Orders” Nazi Defense for CIA Director-Designate Gina Haspel During the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, several Nazis, including top German generals Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel, claimed they were not guilty of the tribunal’s charges because they had been acting at the directive of their superiors. Ever since, this justification has been popularly known as the “Nuremberg defense,” in which the accused states they were “only following orders.” The Nuremberg judges rejected the Nuremberg defense, and both Jodl and Keitel were hanged. The United Nations International Law Commission later codified the underlying principle from Nuremberg as “the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” By Jon Schwarz
Plundering Public Funds is ‘As Amweican as Apple Pie’!: Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant to Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House Alabama has a Depression-era law that allows sheriffs to “keep and retain” unspent money from jail food-provision accounts. Sheriffs across the state take excess money as personal income — and, in the event of a shortfall, are personally liable for covering the gap. By Camila Domonoske
Environment:
It’s 50 years since climate change was first seen. Now time is running out Fifty years ago, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) delivered a report titled Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association for the fossil fuel industry. The report, unearthed by researchers at the Center for International Environmental Law, is one of the earliest attempts by the industry to grapple with the impacts of rising CO2 levels, which Stanford’s researchers warned if left unabated “could bring about climatic changes” like temperature increases, melting of ice caps and sea level rise. By Richard Wiles
Rising Sea Levels Come at Steeper Cost Delay in slowing rising sea levels is dangerous. Each five-year delay in limiting global carbon emissions into the atmosphere now will increase sea level rise for the next three centuries. This warning is based on computer models of global warming and sea level rise – but a second study based on very precise measurements over the last 25 years confirms that the models are reliable – and that sea level rise is already accelerating. By Tim Radford
Who owns water? The US landowners putting barbed wire across rivers New Mexico is a battleground in the fight over once public waterways, sparking fears it could set a national precedent By Cassidy Randall
EPA Withdraws Air Pollution Policy Agency reverses decades-old emissions policy that environmentalists and congressional critics called one of its bedrock regulations The Trump administration is withdrawing a decades-old air policy aimed at reining in some of the largest sources of hazardous pollutants like mercury and lead. The Environmental Protection Agency said late Thursday it is getting rid of requirements that it forever keep sites classified as “major sources” of hazardous air pollution once they meet that classification. This “once-in always-in” policy punished industry by keeping factories and other sites under heavy regulation even if they made improvements that would prevent them from being major sources of pollution, according to the EPA and lawmakers who had requested the move. By Timothy Puko
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
New Orleans Approves Natural Gas Power Plant Despite Environmental Racism and Climate Concerns Despite hearing over four hours of public comments mostly in opposition, New Orleans City Council recently approved construction of a $210 million natural gas power plant in a predominantly minority neighborhood. Entergy is proposing to build this massive investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in a city already plagued by the effects of climate change. Choosing a gas plant over renewable energy options flies in the face of the city’s own climate change plan and the mayor’s support for the Paris Climate Accord, said several of the plant’s opponents at the heated meeting when City Council ultimately voted to approve the plant. By Julie Dermansky
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Russia Says it Will Attack U.S. Military if Trump Strikes Syria Again Top Russian officials have threatened to retaliate with force if President Donald Trump orders an attack that could endanger the lives of its soldiers stationed there in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign against rebels and jihadis near Damascus. By Tom O’Connor
Spain: pensioners on the march For weeks pensioners have been protesting across the Spanish state against the government’s decision to increase state pensions by a paltry 0.25 percent (against a 1.6 percent inflation rate). The largely spontaneous movement has been growing and is now calling on other sectors of society to join in mass demonstrations on Saturday, March 17.
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Deutsche Bank connections to globally important banks
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