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 1%Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.
Coup in progress? Venezuelan Foreign Minister decries US and Brazil-backed effort to oust Maduro Update: Since this interveiw was published by Democracy Now!. President Trump has recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president, calling democratically elected President Maduro “illegitimate.” In response, Venezuela has cut diplomatic ties with the U.S., giving diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. The United States and allied nations in Latin America are ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela in what appears to be a coordinated effort to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office. Maduro was sworn in last week to a second 6-year term following his victory in last May’s election, which was boycotted by the opposition. Days before Maduro was sworn in, opposition figure Juan Guaidó became head of the National Assembly, which soon voted to declare Maduro a “usurper” in an effort to remove him from office. The United States, Brazil and other nations have welcomed the effort. As the political crisis intensifies, Maduro has reached out to the United Nations to help establish a peace dialogue in Venezuela.
Chavista crowds gathered in Caracas vow to oppose any US-backed coups and attempts against the constitution, and to set up vigils around Miraflores Palace.
High Noon In Caracas: After using institutional structures (using the military would not be good PR) to topple elected Presidents in Honduras, Paraguay and Brazil, the US haas struck Venezuela. It was long predicted..Juan Guaido is a well-known US asset who led the students over a decade ago to try and trigger an ‘Orange Revolution’style mobilisation a la Ukraine. He failed. The aim here is to present a new young face (like Nieto in Mexico} not linked to the discredited opposition. As President of the National Assembly, Guaido has an elected post but there is another Assembly. What we have is a state of dual power now with Trump, Bolsonaro and right-wing governments (including the turncoat Moreno in Ecuador) backing Guaido. The Mexicans, Cubans, Bolivians and Uruguayan governments continue to recognise the Maduro government as do Spain and Portugal and, as a result, the EU countries. They are suggesting compromise and new elections. The military high command remains loyal to the Maduro government. However many criticisms people may have regarding Maduro, backing a US-co-ordinated regime change represents no way forward. It shoiuld be streongly opposed. — Tariq Ali
AIN’T I A WOMAN? Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! A nd ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. — Delivered 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio By Sojourner Truth
Economic Update: Politicians Faking It This week: Updates on Luxembourg making all public transportation free; how Europe is evading U.S. sanctions on Iran; Saudi Arabia sleaze deals with Trump; Deutsche Bank’s massive corruption; and how Pompeo’s anti-China strategy contradicts Trump “nationalism;” journalist Bob Hennelly on politicians betraying workers’ and local citizens’ needs
‘Historic Day for American Unions’: Los Angeles Teachers Strike Earns Victory for Labor, Public Education “Teachers, students, parents, and their neighbors came together in the pouring rain to make historic demands for public education.” “This strike and the community support of the teacher strikers flipped the debate over public education in L.A. on its head. And the result is nothing short of a sea change for public schools and for educators in L.A. and in the country,” said American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten.”For the last 10 years, the political forces in Los Angeles haven’t valued public schools, nor respected the people who teach in them,” she noted. “This was a fight for the soul of public education. It was a fight to invest in public schools after decades of neglect, and while one contract can’t fix everything, this is a starting point.” By Jessica Corbett
Millions of Americans Flood Into Mexico for Health Care — the Human Caravan You Haven’t Heard AboutThe Trump administration is trying to convey panic that there’s an immediate crisis on the southern border, pointing to caravans of desperate people who have traveled thousands of miles. It’s true that Latin and Central Americans are coming to the US fleeing violence and poverty, much of it caused by destructive US trade policy over the course of decades. But there’s another massive “border crossing” phenomenon afoot — and Trump has not said a word about it. We’re talking about thousands of US citizens crossing the border each day in search of affordable health care. By Mark Provost
The Smile of Class PrivilegeThere it is again. Recognize it? That smile. A grin, really. You can spin it anyway you want to, but it is unmistakable except, of course, to the toxically innocent or ahistorical and willfully obtuse. It is one born of privilege. The boys in this photo were taunting Dorothy Counts who was the first black student admitted to Harry Harding High School, in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1957. She was forced to withdraw from the school only four days later following unrelenting harassment, threats and jeers by her white classmates By Kenn Orphan
Dorothy Counts in classroom at Harry Harding High Schoo, 1957. Photo: Don Sturkey (Public Domain.)
Forest Service Ignores Science to Justify Logging The Helena National Forest has released its Ten Mile-South Helena Project, which will include logging, prescribed burning on more than 17,500 acres including in roadless lands proposed for wilderness designation. Throughout its document, the FS ignores the preponderance of fire science to justify logging/thinning of the forest and ignores the many environmental impacts that result from such actions.By George Wuerthner
Lead Found in Brass Mouthpieces Used in Musical Instruments CEH has found the toxic metal lead in 13 brass mouthpieces used to play instruments like trumpets, saxophones, and trombones. CEH sent legal notices to 12 manufacturers and two retailers for failing to warn customers of this health threat, as required by California’s consumer protection law Prop 65. Prop 65 identifies lead as a metal that causes cancer and reproductive harm. Guitar Center Inc. was found to sell 10 of the lead tainted products.
Roe: 47 Years and CountingTwo days after Nixon’s inauguration, on the January 22nd, the then all-male Supreme Court voted 7-2, in Roe v Wade, to overturn a Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to terminate her pregnancy. The Count found the law violated a woman’s due process rights. Often forgotten, Justice Harry Blackmun noted, “… throughout the 19th Century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn ….” The Roe decision forced 46 states to liberalize their abortion laws and became the defining issue of the culture wars. By David Rosen
Black Agenda Report:
Bernie Sanders vs Kamala the Jailer and Her Corporate Backers The best thing that can happen in 2020 is for Bernie Sanders to do fantastically in the primaries and then be cheated out of the nomination, once again, thus giving millions of leftish Democrats a chance to do something useful with their lives— leave the party! “Kamala Harris is by far the most dangerous corporate threat to a revival of the Sandernistas.” Early this century, the oligarchy of filthy-rich white men that rule the United States reached a consensus among themselves on the necessity of maintaining a regime of endless war and austerity. In truth, there was no other policy choice available to the Lords of Capital. The financial oligarchy’s success in consolidating virtually all political and economic power in an ever-shrinking cabal of the super-wealthy has all but eliminated the last refuges and hideaways of democracy in the U.S., while condemning most of the population to eternal insecurity amidst falling living standards. Late stage western capitalism has nothing to offer its own citizens but austerity, and no way to compete with the dynamic societies of Asia except through war. Yet, the rulers must maintain the charade of domestic social progress and mass upward mobility, although no such possibilities exist under this system. Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
Supporters cheer during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
Arrest of Marzieh Hashemi Reveals Nature of Bipartisan Police State The only reason our sister is being held captive is to once again demonstrate how a runaway slave is treated. “Even the Bill of Rights doesn’t provide protections when you have been designated an enemy of the state.”Arresting PressTV’s Marzieh Hashemi on no criminal charges demonstrates by any objective measure the United States operates as a rogue state in its utter contempt for accepted international human-rights law and standards. By Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Can the “Wretched” Rule? On Socialism, the State, and the Future of Humanity Can the “Wretched” Rule? On Socialism, the State, and the Future of Humanity it is merely a fantasy to believe that the struggle to bring socialism in the United States will not involve a revolutionary struggle against the state. “Socialism certainly won’t arrive because a Democrat speaks its name.” By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Freedom Rider: Free Marzieh Hashemi Black American journalist languishes in a DC jail, imprisoned without charge as part of the US vendetta against Iran, yet the Black political class has not raised a peep in protest. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
Chicago Racist Police-State Blues: Sixteen Shots for Laquan, Three Years for Van Dyke Street activism led to an historic murder conviction of a killer cop, but then a racist judge let him off with a light sentence. A Black American journalist languishes in a DC jail, imprisoned without charge as part of the US vendetta against Iran, yet the Black political class has not raised a peep in protest.By Paul Street
Beyond NATO: Time to Break the Silence, End NATO’s Militarism Dr King would be opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because it is an instrument of US and European militarism. “King described how the US keeps troops in foreign lands to ‘maintain social stability for our investments accounts.’” Fifty-two years ago on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his most important speech ever, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence .” King’s conscience drove him to take the unpopular position of publicly criticizing the Vietnam War and putting it in the context of the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.” The message of that speech remains relevant today because its wisdom has not been heeded. By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine If we are to honor King’s message and not merely the man, we must condemn Israel’s actions. “Israel has adopted some practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States.” On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up to the lectern at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. The United States had been in active combat in Vietnam for two years and tens of thousands of people had been killed, including some 10,000 American troops. The political establishment — from left to right — backed the war, and more than 400,000 American service members were in Vietnam, their lives on the line. By Michelle Alexander
Labor:
Economy:
Stock Markets Slip Amid Signs Global Economy Is WeakeningUs Markets Dropped Sharply Following Falls From Europe And Asia As The Imf Trimmed Its Economic Forecasts For 2019 Stock Markets Across The World Fell Tuesday Amid Further Signs That The Global Economy Is Weakening.Us Markets Dropped Sharply Following Falls Across Europe And Asia As The International Monetary Fund (Imf) Trimmed Its Economic Forecasts For 2019 And 2020 And Pointed To Risks Including Trade Tensions And Rising Interest Rates. China’s Government Said Its Economy Grew In 2018 At The Slowest Pace Since 1990.
World:
Popular Democracy in Cuba The socialist governments of the Third World plus China have developed popular democracy, with structures that are alternatives to those of representative democracy. Laws and policies are decided by deputies of the people, and not by politicians dependent on the support of corporate and wealthy interests. Let us look at the historical development of the alternative political process in the case of Cuba. By Charles Mckelvey
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
L.A. Teachers Strike Dispatch #9: What We Won The United Teachers of Los Angeles strike was enormously popular, with tens of thousands of parents and students joining already full picketlines. There were many intangibles won, including but not limited to:
We learned that despite the PR hatchet job the anti-union, anti-public school forces have waged for the past 25 years, the general public still very much believes in public education and teachers.
The strike provided the opportunity to educate the public on the way their children are being shortchanged by the Los Angeles Unified School District, and our schools drained of funds by the charter industry.
Many LAUSD school administrators were won over to the teachers and the teachers’ union’s demands, and were unenthused—to say the least—about the current LAUSD leadership.
Much of the media has been sympathetic, even if they were not originally sympathetic to us.
LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner’s plan to break up LAUSD into 32 separate entities and charterize it—while not part of these contract negotiations—has suffered a serious blow. Maybe even Beutner himself is seeing his thinking begin to evolve.
We showed our strength as we head next year into the next battle—the battle to preserve our healthcare. LAUSD tried (unsuccessfully) to cut it last year, and the austerity attempts will be back. By Glenn Sacks
