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.
Russia and the War Party (Repulicrat) The steady deterioration of American political discourse seems to have reached its lowest ebb in historical memory, visible in the rightward shift of both Democrats and Republicans. One sign is the frenzied Democratic assault on Republicans from the right, especially in foreign policy. Another is the resounding silence on the most crucial problems facing humanity: threat of catastrophic war, nuclear arms race, ecological crisis, health-care debacle, the worsening miseries of global capitalism. Tabloid-style spectacles have increasingly filled media space. Still another sign is the intensifying anti-Russia hysteria promoted by unhinged liberals in Congress and the corporate media, reminiscent of the worst McCarthyism. by Carl Boggs
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Canary in the Coal Pond In tests conducted in late 2017, one in three coal-fired power plants nationwide detected “statistically significant” amounts of contaminants, including harmful chemicals like arsenic, in the groundwater around their facilities. This information, which utility companies had to post on their websites in March, became public for the first time under an Obama-era environmental rule regulating coal ash, the waste generated from burning coal. Mixed with water and stored in ponds and landfills at nearly 300 facilities across the country, coal ash has been found to contain carcinogens and toxins like mercury and lead. For decades, people living near coal-fired plants have feared the ash was seeping into the ground and contaminating their drinking water. By Talia Buford
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Comey Says FBI’s Surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. Was “Shameful” — But Comey’s FBI Surveilled Black Activists In his new book, James Comey describes his deep admiration for Martin Luther King Jr. and decries the FBI’s treatment of him as “a dark chapter in the Bureau’s history.” Shortly after he became FBI director in 2013, Comey instructed the entire workforce of the FBI to read King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” one of Comey’s favorite writings. He created a curriculum for new agents to “remember how well-meaning folks lost their way,” and introduced an exercise for the new recruits to visit the King memorial, pick one of the quotes inscribed on the marble wall, and write an essay “about the intersections of that quotation and the FBI’s values.” On his desk at the bureau, Comey kept a copy of the letter authorizing the wall-to-wall surveillance of King as a reminder of this “shameful” history. Despite this professed appreciation for King and his aim to right the wrongs of the bureau’s past, Comey presided over many of the same racialized tactics and assumptions in his tenure as FBI director: broadly targeting the Muslim-American community, coercing informants, trafficking in racial profiling, surveilling Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock activists, and largely standing aside amid police violence and misconduct. As he hits the lecture circuit this week, feted by many across the political spectrum as the nation’s conscience, we would do well to move beyond his claims of “ethical leadership” to his actual actions as director of the FBI. By Jeanne Theoharis
Freedom Rider: Windrush and Britain’s Crimes Against Black People “The Windrush generation their children have the right to live and work in Britain.” “P.M. [Churchill] thinks ‘Keep Britain white’ a good slogan!” – Sir Harold McMillan It was true that the sun never set on the British empire. The voracious appetite for resources and wealth, including human property, made Britain one of the most criminal nations in all of human history. From Australia to Africa to India to the Caribbean the British empire committed numerous genocides and thefts on a massive scale. Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
epa06682141 People gather for a Windrush generation solidarity protest in Brixtron, London, Britain, 20 April 2018. As claims emerge that the Home Office destroyed thousands of landing cards documenting the arrival of windrush-era migrants, communities in Brixton gathered in Windrush Square in solidarity with those threatened with deportation, sacking and the removal of healthcare as result of the governments ‘hostile environment’ strategy. British Home Secretary Amber Rudd ‚Äôs apology and promise to devote resources to resolve cases represents a significant climbdown. However growing awareness of the immense suffering already caused means pressure is building for the government to reverse its policy targeting undocumented migrants. EPA/ANDY RAIN
“Cruise Missile Left” Complicit in American Escalation Toward World War III “The cruise missile left has aligned with the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies against Trump and have dropped any anti-war, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist tendencies in the process.” The US-led alliance of imperial nations has waged war on Syria for eight years with the hopes of overthrowing the independent Arab nationalist state led by President Bashar Al-Assad. Syria was believed to be another domino destined to fall in imperialism’s great power game to contain any international threat to its rule. Former NATO general Wesley Clarke revealed US plans in 2007 to use the September 11th attacks to justify the overthrow seven countries in five years: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria. Most of these countries have since been thrown into chaos by way of US imperial expansion in the Middle East and North Africa. Clarke’s admission should be enough to clarify the Trump Administration’s most recent airstrikes on Syria as an escalation of the broader war for US hegemony in the region and the world. By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributorReflections on The Pan-Afro-Asiatic Civilizational Complex “The encroachments of European traders, missionaries, explorers, planters, soldiers, and especially scholars and teachers, represented not civilization but rather, its antithesis.” The preceding map of the world by fourteenth-century North African scholar ibn Battuta pictures the world as travelers came to know it at the break of the early modern epoch. Reading ibn Battuta’s travelogues, I am reminded afresh of the inter-civilizational unity of Pan Africa and Pan Asia in antiquity and modernity, and the violent severing of these deep ties of civilization and kinship amongst our peoples by European slavery and colonialism. The inquiries of K.M. Panikkar, Martin Bernal, Frank Snowden, and D.D Kosambi have further elucidated the rich history of trade and civilization between Africa and Asia in first millennium of the common era, in antiquity, and indeed, pre-history. We now know that renaissance of civilization in Europe in the fifteenth century would have been impossible without the invasions of Africa, the Americas, and Asia by Europeans much as the Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without the labor of the black worker in the Americas. By R. Divya Nair
Germany’s Refusal to Join the Latest US-Led Missile Strikes on Syria “The major left party concluded that the US-led missile strikes violated international law.”Germany did not join the US, UK, and France in the latest missile strikes in Syria despite President Trump’s invitation. The next day Germany’s Die Linke , aka the Left Party, released an unequivocal statement opposing the strikes: By Ann Garrison, BAR contributor
Homecoming for Two of the Bronx 120.: Two years ago, New York City police and federal agents stormed into five housing developments in the Soundview section of The Bronx and swept up 120 young men on criminal conspiracy charges. Officials claimed it was the biggest “gang” raid in NYC history. This Friday, community organizers will welcome home two of those arrested. Kraig Lewis was doing graduate studies in college when the raid hit. “It felt like they were kidnapping us,” he told Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser.
Corporate Media “Could Care Less” About International Law: University of Illinois professor of international law Dr. Francis Boylesaid the illegality of U.S. attacks against Syria and occupation of its territory is a non-issue for U.S. corporate media. “They couldn’t care less,” said Boyle. “They’re all bought and paid for by big business and interlocked with the arms industry. We have the best media that money can buy, just like we have the best Congress that money can pay for.”
Durham NC Bans Police Exchanges With Israel: A ten-group coalition won unanimous passage of a bill prohibiting the Durham police department from exchanges of training or information with Israel — the first city in the U.S. to do so. “If you’re going to exchange information and be trained by Israel, that means you’re going to get trained in apartheid tactics,” said Ajamu Amir Dillahunt, of Black Youth Project 100, part of the Demilitarize Durham2Palestine Coalition.
South Carolina Wants to Silence Inmates at Troubled Prison: “Brothers are going to find a way to communicate with the outside, and they will no longer tolerate the kind of human rights abuses that previous generations experienced,” said longtime prisoner rights advocate Efia Nwangaza, director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination, in Greenville, South Carolina. The state’s governor blames cell phones for violence that left 7 inmates dead and at least 17 injured at the Lee County corrections facility — the deadliest prison disturbance in a quarter century. Nwangaza said any effort to confiscate all cell phones behind the bars would result in “all out war.”
Corporate Media “Could Care Less” About International Law: :Two years ago, New York City police and federal agents stormed into five housing developments in the Soundview section of The Bronx and swept up 120 young men on criminal conspiracy charges. Officials claimed it was the biggest “gang” raid in NYC history. This Friday, community organizers will welcome home two of those arrested. Kraig Lewiswas doing graduate studies in college when the raid hit. “It felt like they were kidnapping us,” he told Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Labor:
Economy:
Why Did Yesterday’s Market Rout Miss the Big Wall Street Banks? Wall Street knows something that the rest of us don’t. Based on past experience, when Wall Street keeps secrets it never works out well for the rest of us. We’re thinking about the time Wall Street banks colluded on rigging prices on the Nasdaq market; or the time they rigged their research departments and told us to buy stocks that they were secretly callings dogs and crap; or the time they got S&P and Moody’s to give them triple-A ratings on subprime pools of debt while keeping it a secret that they had internal reports showing the loans didn’t meet their origination standards — and then they went out and secretly shorted that debt while continuing to sell it to their customers as a good investment. By Pam and Russ MartensWhy Isn’t the Justice Department Bringing Treasury-Rigging Charges Against Wall Street?The U.S. Department of Justice has had an ongoing investigation into the potential rigging of the U.S. Treasury market by big banks on Wall Street for the past three years according to a series of past media reports. And yet, no formal charges have been brought. Lots of Wall Street watchers are wondering why – especially since private law firms have brought very specific charges in the matter into Federal court. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
British perspectives 2018: a country turned upside down The despair and pessimism of the bourgeois everywhere is a reflection of the crisis of the capitalist system, which has reached an impasse. Marx explained that the key to the development of society is the development of the productive forces (industry, technique science, etc.). The present crisis shows that capitalism is unable to develop the productive forces as it did in the past. At this point society enters into crisis, creating the objective conditions for social revolution. These are the objective reasons for the decisive changes that are occurring in Britain and on a world scale. The world situation is characterised by extreme turbulence, economically, politically, and socially. This extreme volatility has arisen from the terminal crisis of the capitalist system. Socialist Appeal (UK)
The Confirmation of Democracy in Cuba The Cuban electoral system confirmed its democratic character through the exercise of the popular consultative procedure that elected Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez as head of state and government. Cubans will now place their hopes in him to continue the island’s revolutionary process, a paradigm of ideas and struggles for socialism and the independence of the nations of Latin America. by Manuel E. YepePakistan: Pashtun movement (PTM) shakes the status quo! Anew Pashtun movement has erupted in Pakistan, mobilizing hundreds-of-thousands of people across the country, with tens-of-thousands attending its public meetings. The state apparatus and the entire ruling class, including all establishment political parties, are trembling at the sight of this huge movement, which originated from the most backward areas of the country – where it was least expected.Article originally published on 6 April 2018. We re-publish it today in light of the recent crackdown on supporters of the Pashtun movement, as a result of which, seven of our comrades were abducted. Adam Pal
Act now: mobilise all forces to save abducted Pakistani activistsThe seven socialist activists abducted by the Rangers in Pakistan are still being held. Their whereabouts remain unknown. All possible measures are being taken to locate them. As yet, no charges have been made and the reason is that no crime has been committed. They have been abducted because of their solidarity activities with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM): a mass movement of immense proportions of the Pashtun people, who are demanding to know where the 30,000 people who have disappeared over recent years are, whether they are being held in prison or whether they have been killed. By In Defence of Marxism
U.S.:
