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.
If the Democrats Defend the Environment, why don’t they just start by declaring a (non-binding) Climate Emergency in the House of Representatives (They have the votes), like Britain and other European Countries have done? — Like Roland Sheppard
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 Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote 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!
‘There Is a Stench’: Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Children at a Texas CenterA chaotic scene of sickness and filth is unfolding in an overcrowded border station in Clint, Tex., where hundreds of young people who have recently crossed the border are being held, according to lawyers who visited the facility this week. Some of the children have been there for nearly a month. Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met, the lawyers said. Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants. Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk. By Caitlin Dickerson
Iranian President Says White House ‘Afflicted by Mental Retardation’Iran warned Tuesday that new U.S. sanctions targeting its supreme leader and other top officials meant “closing the doors of diplomacy” between Tehran and Washington amid heightened tensions, even as the country’s president derided the White House as being “afflicted by mental retardation.” Nasser Karimi and Jon GambrellWhat Corruption in Sports Can Teach Us About Trump’s AmericaA half-century ago, the sporting Cassandras predicted that the worst values and sensibilities of our increasingly corrupted civic society would eventually affect our sacred games: football would become a gladiatorial meat market, basketball a model of racism, college sports a paradigm of commercialization, and Olympic sports like swimming and gymnastics a hotbed of sexual predators. Mission accomplished! By Robert LipsyteWho Exactly Is the Economy ‘Booming’ For?
Congratulations on that nice pay raise you got last year. A 7 percent hike — wow! After 40 years of stagnant wages, that uptick should help you pay off some of old credit card bills or get an upgrade on your 10-year-old pickup. Oh, wait… you say you didn’t get such a raise? Oops, my mistake. It was the CEOs of corporate giants who reported to the Associated Press that they enjoyed a median jump of 7 percent last year. And, since their paychecks were already king-size, that amounted to an extra $800,000 in their take-home, jacking up their total yearly income to $12 million each. By Jim HightowerThe Government Is Working — for Corporations In light of a violent past, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn himself from consideration as President Trump’s official pick to lead the Pentagon, leaving Mark Esper, a former vice president of government relations at Raytheon, to succeed him. At first glance, Trump’s half-empty administration might appear understaffed and ineffectual, and in terms of the public interest, that’s probably true. But the Trump administration is very openly working for private interests, not public interests, and in that regard, either Shanahan or Esper will work just fine. By Daniel UncapherEnvironment:
How banning dangerous chemicals could save the US billions It’s a myth that environmental regulations stifle economic productivity. Harmful chemicals cost the US $340bn a year The Trump administration has argued that environmental regulations hold back economic productivity. Yet history suggests that the opposite is the case. Look at phasing out lead in gasoline. To this day, the US receives a $200bn annual economic stimulus package each year because lead levels in children plummeted when the US Environmental Protection Agency moved to protect children. By Leonardo Trasande
Headline: Greenland Temps Soar 40 Degrees Above Normal, Record Melting of Ice SheetIf the Greenland ice shelf melts, the sea level will raise amost 20.5 feet. According to the U.S. Geological Survey3, if all of the ice caps melted, it is estimated that sea level could rise more than 80 meters or 262 feet. The potential catastrophic results of global warming and the threat to humanity’s future should become an immediate concern. (See the chart below.)
Table 1. Estimated potential maximum sea-level rise from the total melting of present-day Glaciers
We Have Less Than a Millisecond Left You see, the planet we call home has existed for roughly 4.55 billion years. But numbers that large mean almost nothing to me, nor to most people, so I choose to break it down. If we lay the age of the Earth out over a calendar year, that would amount to 518,264 years per hour or 144 years per second. So if we have 10 or 11 years until the point of no return, as climate scientists have repeatedly told us, that means we have a millisecond left before midnight in which to change our society completely to avoid turning the Earth into a piping hot fajita. (If you want to be more generous and instead look at how long modern homosapiens have been walking around, it’s 315,000 years. So if you lay that over a calendar year, we have roughly 15 minutes before the stroke of midnight to combat climate change. Not sure that makes me feel much better.) By Lee CampHow banning dangerous chemicals could save the US billions It’s a myth that environmental regulations stifle economic productivity. Harmful chemicals cost the US $340bn a year The Trump administration has argued that environmental regulations hold back economic productivity. Yet history suggests that the opposite is the case. Look at phasing out lead in gasoline. To this day, the US receives a $200bn annual economic stimulus package each year because lead levels in children plummeted when the US Environmental Protection Agency moved to protect children. By Leonardo Trasande
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:We are Already Late to the Great Black Reparations DebateThe following essay was prepared for the 30th annual convention of NCOBRA, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, held June 20 – 23 in Detroit. 2017 is the year that reparations definitively became a “mainstream” issue – meaning, serious candidates for president have been compelled to discuss the need to repair the historical and ongoing damage inflicted on Black people with the complicity of the United States government. Solid majorities of African Americans support reparations in principle: 64 percent, according to a Business Insider poll taken in March of this year, a statistically significant increase over Black pro-reparations sentiment measured in 2014 (59 percent, according to a YouGov survey), 2015 (52 percent, CNN) and 2016 (58 percent, Marist Poll). The Business Insider poll shows that 25 percent of whites, 37 percent of Asian Americans and 42 percent of Hispanics favor reparations – not enough to sway a national referendum on reparations, but almost certainly constituting a majority of the Democratic Party base, 25 percent of which is Black. By Glen Ford , BAR executive editorFreedom Rider: Biden and the Shame of the Black Misleaders The misleaders are tacitly admitting that black people can expect little to be done in their favor even if the Democrats manage to win. “The CBC won’t drop Biden unless the 1% clique tell them to.” The disgraceful promotion of Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy is all the proof one needs that the black misleadership class is a grave danger to their community and to the nation. Biden was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 precisely because of his right wing credentials. But he no longer has Obama’s imprimatur to protect him and his racist history is now out in the open for all to see. By Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist2020 Democratic Party Debates Encircle Sanders with Wall Street’s Political Dogs Wall Street wants Harris, Buttigieg, and Biden to dominate the floor and shut down Sanders. “The ‘political revolution’ that Sanders proposes is too left for the ruling class but not left enough for humanity.” The schedule for the Democratic Party primary debates has been announced. This time around, the debates are split into two separate evenings to account for the large number of candidates in the Democratic primary. The participants in each round were supposedly chosen by way of a Democratic National Committee-led “lottery” system. Bernie Sanders was placed on the debate with Wall Street’s three favorite candidates: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg. Far from a randomized selection process, the debates show that the ruling class is encircling Sanders with its political dogs with the hopes that the trio can collectively weaken his chances for the nomination. By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributorMayor Pete’s White House Race Trips on Race The gay young presidential candidate’s cops killed a Black father on Father’s Day, but Butiggieg snubbed the community vigil. “The neoliberal, developer-friendly pro-gentrification mayor has poured salt on the city’s racial wounds.” By Paul StreetA Brief History of US Concentration Camps(concentration camp (noun): a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. – Oxford English Dictionary) There is no doubt that concentration camps are in operation on US soil once again. “The Union Army re-captured freed slaves throughout the South and pressed them into hard labor in disease-ridden ‘contraband camps.’” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has ignited a firestorm of criticism, from both the left and the right as well as the mainstream media, for calling US immigrant detention centers “concentration camps.” To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez has refused to back down, citing academic experts and blasting the Trump administration for forcibly holding undocumented migrants “where they are brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.” She also cited history. By Brett WilkinsWill Chicago Get a Memorial to Honor the Survivors of Police Torture? The memorial would be a stone monument with the names of those tortured by Burge and his officers and the dates they were tortured. “Use of the term ‘reparations’ was important to capture the racism at work and that the compensation being offered was for violence by the state.” In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a reparations ordinance. That ordinance, the first of its kind in the country, was the city’s official acknowledgment that Jon Burge, a Chicago police commander, and detectives under his command, “systematically engaged in acts of torture, physical abuse and coercion of African American men and women at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters from 1972 through 1991.” By Vaidya GullapalliDates and Bullets: Sudan in the Grip of the RSF Militia The Sudanese protest movement needs a focused strategy to resist the RSF’s growing power. “The RSF are backed by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who want to ensure their continued participation in the catastrophic war in Yemen.” On a hot May evening, I was stuck at a traffic light in a small rickshaw on my way to the sit-in in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum, when the call to prayer rang loud, marking the time to break fast. By Haim SalihHow Teach for America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement The huge nonprofit is backed by billionaire school privatizers with a sophisticated agenda. “Although only 7% of students go to charter schools, Teach For America sent almost 40% of its 6,736 teachers to them in 2018.” When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant. By Annie WaldmanWe Have to Finance a Global Green New Deal – Or Face the Consequences How much money is the US and other rich countries willing to transfer to poor countries to reduce carbon emissions?“Developing countries are expected to contribute nearly 90 percent of emissions growth over the next two decades.”As politicians talkmore about ramping up their commitments to reducing carbon emissions —recently, even Vice President Mike Pence squirmed when pressed on his climate denialism and said the U.S. is making progress on that front — one key aspect of the crisis remains conspicuously absent from most U.S discussions: so-called climate finance. The question of how much money the U.S. and other wealthy, industrialized nations will transfer to poor, developing countries so that they can effectively reduce their own carbon emissions has gone largely unaddressed, even as it grows in importance. Developing countries already account for more than 60 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions and are expected to contribute nearly 90 percent of emissions growth over the next two decades. By Rachel M. CohenWhy Venezuela Is the Vietnam of Our TimeHybrid warfare combines military force with “unconventional” warfare, such as covert campaigns to destabilize the economy of targeted nations. “If the U.S. succeeds in destroying the Bolivarian government, it will be a blow to people across the world.” On April 30, 1975, the United States learned an important lesson. The capture of Saigon by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) would mark the defeat of the world’s most powerful military force by an army of guerrilla fighters. No matter the scale of its military, or the weight of the iron fist it used to maintain its power, brute force would not always be enough to win wars. The guerrillas possessed a key weapon that the U.S. did not: the support of the people. By Celina della CroceBlack Agenda Radio, Week of January, 25, 2019
Government Figures Don’t Lie, But Government Liares Can ‘ Figure’: Paul Craig Roberts Exposes The Diminishing American EconomySince June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovered economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the work force to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2019, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.8 percent. Another characteristic of a long expansion is high and rising business investment. However, American corporations have used their profits not for expansion, but to reduce their market capitalization by buying back their stock. Moreover, many have gone further and borrowed money in order to repurchase their shares, thus indebting their companies as they reduced their capitalization! That boards, executives, and shareholders chose to loot their own companies indicates that the executives and owners do not perceive an economy that warrants new investment.
World: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 ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
Quotes of the Day:
What Corruption in Sports Can Teach Us About Trump’s AmericaA half-century ago, the sporting Cassandras predicted that the worst values and sensibilities of our increasingly corrupted civic society would eventually affect our sacred games: football would become a gladiatorial meat market, basketball a model of racism, college sports a paradigm of commercialization, and Olympic sports like swimming and gymnastics a hotbed of sexual predators. Mission accomplished! By Robert Lipsyte
Who Exactly Is the Economy ‘Booming’ For?
The Government Is Working — for Corporations In light of a violent past, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn himself from consideration as President Trump’s official pick to lead the Pentagon, leaving Mark Esper, a former vice president of government relations at Raytheon, to succeed him. At first glance, Trump’s half-empty administration might appear understaffed and ineffectual, and in terms of the public interest, that’s probably true. But the Trump administration is very openly working for private interests, not public interests, and in that regard, either Shanahan or Esper will work just fine. By Daniel Uncapher
Environment:
How banning dangerous chemicals could save the US billions It’s a myth that environmental regulations stifle economic productivity. Harmful chemicals cost the US $340bn a year The Trump administration has argued that environmental regulations hold back economic productivity. Yet history suggests that the opposite is the case. Look at phasing out lead in gasoline. To this day, the US receives a $200bn annual economic stimulus package each year because lead levels in children plummeted when the US Environmental Protection Agency moved to protect children. By Leonardo Trasande
We are Already Late to the Great Black Reparations Debate The following essay was prepared for the 30th annual convention of NCOBRA, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, held June 20 – 23 in Detroit. 2017 is the year that reparations definitively became a “mainstream” issue – meaning, serious candidates for president have been compelled to discuss the need to repair the historical and ongoing damage inflicted on Black people with the complicity of the United States government. Solid majorities of African Americans support reparations in principle: 64 percent, according to a Business Insider poll taken in March of this year, a statistically significant increase over Black pro-reparations sentiment measured in 2014 (59 percent, according to a YouGov survey), 2015 (52 percent, CNN) and 2016 (58 percent, Marist Poll). The Business Insider poll shows that 25 percent of whites, 37 percent of Asian Americans and 42 percent of Hispanics favor reparations – not enough to sway a national referendum on reparations, but almost certainly constituting a majority of the Democratic Party base, 25 percent of which is Black. By Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Freedom Rider: Biden and the Shame of the Black Misleaders The misleaders are tacitly admitting that black people can expect little to be done in their favor even if the Democrats manage to win. “The CBC won’t drop Biden unless the 1% clique tell them to.” The disgraceful promotion of Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy is all the proof one needs that the black misleadership class is a grave danger to their community and to the nation. Biden was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 precisely because of his right wing credentials. But he no longer has Obama’s imprimatur to protect him and his racist history is now out in the open for all to see. By Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
2020 Democratic Party Debates Encircle Sanders with Wall Street’s Political Dogs Wall Street wants Harris, Buttigieg, and Biden to dominate the floor and shut down Sanders. “The ‘political revolution’ that Sanders proposes is too left for the ruling class but not left enough for humanity.” The schedule for the Democratic Party primary debates has been announced. This time around, the debates are split into two separate evenings to account for the large number of candidates in the Democratic primary. The participants in each round were supposedly chosen by way of a Democratic National Committee-led “lottery” system. Bernie Sanders was placed on the debate with Wall Street’s three favorite candidates: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg. Far from a randomized selection process, the debates show that the ruling class is encircling Sanders with its political dogs with the hopes that the trio can collectively weaken his chances for the nomination. By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Mayor Pete’s White House Race Trips on Race The gay young presidential candidate’s cops killed a Black father on Father’s Day, but Butiggieg snubbed the community vigil. “The neoliberal, developer-friendly pro-gentrification mayor has poured salt on the city’s racial wounds.” By Paul Street
A Brief History of US Concentration Camps(concentration camp (noun): a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. – Oxford English Dictionary) There is no doubt that concentration camps are in operation on US soil once again. “The Union Army re-captured freed slaves throughout the South and pressed them into hard labor in disease-ridden ‘contraband camps.’” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has ignited a firestorm of criticism, from both the left and the right as well as the mainstream media, for calling US immigrant detention centers “concentration camps.” To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez has refused to back down, citing academic experts and blasting the Trump administration for forcibly holding undocumented migrants “where they are brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.” She also cited history. By Brett Wilkins
Will Chicago Get a Memorial to Honor the Survivors of Police Torture? The memorial would be a stone monument with the names of those tortured by Burge and his officers and the dates they were tortured. “Use of the term ‘reparations’ was important to capture the racism at work and that the compensation being offered was for violence by the state.” In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a reparations ordinance. That ordinance, the first of its kind in the country, was the city’s official acknowledgment that Jon Burge, a Chicago police commander, and detectives under his command, “systematically engaged in acts of torture, physical abuse and coercion of African American men and women at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters from 1972 through 1991.” By Vaidya Gullapalli
Dates and Bullets: Sudan in the Grip of the RSF Militia The Sudanese protest movement needs a focused strategy to resist the RSF’s growing power. “The RSF are backed by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who want to ensure their continued participation in the catastrophic war in Yemen.” On a hot May evening, I was stuck at a traffic light in a small rickshaw on my way to the sit-in in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum, when the call to prayer rang loud, marking the time to break fast. By Haim Salih
How Teach for America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement The huge nonprofit is backed by billionaire school privatizers with a sophisticated agenda. “Although only 7% of students go to charter schools, Teach For America sent almost 40% of its 6,736 teachers to them in 2018.” When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant. By Annie Waldman
We Have to Finance a Global Green New Deal – Or Face the Consequences How much money is the US and other rich countries willing to transfer to poor countries to reduce carbon emissions?“Developing countries are expected to contribute nearly 90 percent of emissions growth over the next two decades.”As politicians talkmore about ramping up their commitments to reducing carbon emissions —recently, even Vice President Mike Pence squirmed when pressed on his climate denialism and said the U.S. is making progress on that front — one key aspect of the crisis remains conspicuously absent from most U.S discussions: so-called climate finance. The question of how much money the U.S. and other wealthy, industrialized nations will transfer to poor, developing countries so that they can effectively reduce their own carbon emissions has gone largely unaddressed, even as it grows in importance. Developing countries already account for more than 60 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions and are expected to contribute nearly 90 percent of emissions growth over the next two decades. By Rachel M. Cohen
Why Venezuela Is the Vietnam of Our TimeHybrid warfare combines military force with “unconventional” warfare, such as covert campaigns to destabilize the economy of targeted nations. “If the U.S. succeeds in destroying the Bolivarian government, it will be a blow to people across the world.” On April 30, 1975, the United States learned an important lesson. The capture of Saigon by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) would mark the defeat of the world’s most powerful military force by an army of guerrilla fighters. No matter the scale of its military, or the weight of the iron fist it used to maintain its power, brute force would not always be enough to win wars. The guerrillas possessed a key weapon that the U.S. did not: the support of the people. By Celina della Croce
Black Agenda Radio, Week of January, 25, 2019
