During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 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. Socialism Means True Democracy — The 99% Will Rule! — Not the Few!
“If Boris Johnson thinks he can suspend parliament and force through no deal he has another think coming. We will build a mass movement to save democracy, and everyone who wants to stop this travesty must get ready to mobilize, demonstrate and resist.” —Clive Lewis, UK Labour Party MP — ‘Just the Beginning’: Massive Protests in UK as Thousands Flood Streets to #StoptheCoupBrazil has gotten a huge amount of bad press with the fires in the Amazon with the emphasis on the harm its development policies are doing to efforts to limit global warming. While the policies of Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, are disastrous, there is an important part of the story that is being left out of most discussions.The reason that we are worried about global warming is because rich countries, most importantly the United States, have been spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for well over a century, while destroying the native forests on their lands. They also have paid to have forests in other countries destroyed in order to meet their resource needs. This is the context in which the destruction of the Amazon is a worldwide problem of enormous proportions. (The Amazon is treasure which should be preserved even if global warming was not a crisis, but that is a different matter.) — Brazil, the Amazon, and Global WarmingIn the case of rubber tires, the problem is more complex than mere latex allergy, although this may well turn out to be a serious public health problem by itself. The high dollar cost of truck freight, private automobile commuting, and maintenance of our highway infrastructure must be counted as major sacrifices to our rubber-tired transportation system. Furthermore, fine particle air pollution now kills an estimated 60,000 Americans in cities each year. [7]And global warming is a serious threat to many nations from many viewpoints. (See REHW #429, #430.) However, from the viewpoint of our most important national treasure — our self-governing democracy — the systematic sabotage of the nation’s electric/rail mass transit systems by automobile corporations points up a most serious problem: the ability of “private” corporations to effect sweeping changes in our public life and culture, without public accountability or even debate. If we ever hope to achieve a sustainable environment, and re-establish a fair economy and a working democracy, this is a key problem we will have to acknowledge and address. — Peter Montague, TIRE DUST
The raid by federal agents of the home of one of the most prominent national union officials, coming on the eve of the expiration of contracts for over 155,000 General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler workers, is virtually unprecedented. Coming on the heels of the expansion of the corruption indictments to officials from the UAW-GM department—including Michael Grimes, the top aide of former UAW Vice President Joe Ashton (who has also been implicated)—the raids underscore what the vast majority of autoworkers know: that the UAW is a criminal syndicate, completely hostile to workers’ interests. — Breaking: FBI raids UAW President Gary Jones’ home, as workers vote to strike at GM, Ford and Chrysler
Watch Richard Sackler Deny His Family’s Role in the Opioid Crisis Sackler testified in 2015 in a lawsuit brought by Kentucky against his family’s company, Purdue Pharma, which makes the painkiller OxyContin. We published the transcript in February. Now you can see the video.
U.S.:
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! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich
Is Warren Talented Enough to Betray the People as Masterfully as Obama? Elizabeth Warren is seen as a counter Bernie Sanders, but she will melt (like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) if she stops raising Democrats’ expectations to bust corporate power. “The Democrats cannot beat Trump unless they run on a program of austerity-busting.”If BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon had not passed away in June, he would be having a field day with Monday’s New York Times article describing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s assiduous “courting” of big-wig Democrats, assuring them of her rock-hard loyalty to the party, in supposed contrast to Bernie Sanders’ call for “a mass movement, a political revolution in this country.” The Times makes a convincing case that Warren – now in a three-way tie with Sanders and Joe Biden, according to a new Monmouth Poll – is craftily courting the super-delegates that will cast decisive votes on the second ballot of a brokered convention. Bruce would call it the barking of rival sheep dogs, both of whom are committed to keeping left-leaning voters safely within the Democratic herd. By Glen Ford, Black Agend Report executive editor
Breaking: FBI raids UAW President Gary Jones’ home, as workers vote to strike at GM, Ford and ChryslerAccording to reports in the Detroit media, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service raided the home of United Auto Workers President Gary Jones, the California home of former UAW President Dennis Williams, and a number of other UAW locations Wednesday morning, marking a major escalation of the years-long US federal investigation into corruption and bribery of UAW leaders. By Marcus Day
Pensions Are Not Guaranteed!
The idea that Social Security has to be funded by its beneficiaries has been a setup for the wealthy to claim that the government budget doesn’t have enough money to keep paying. Social Security may begin to run a budget deficit. After having run a surplus since 1933, for 70 years, now we have to begin paying some of this savings out. That’s called a deficit, as if it’s a disaster and we have to begin cutting back Social Security. The implication is that wage earners will have to starve in the street after they retire.
The Federal Reserve has just published statistics saying the average American family, 55 and 60 years old, only has about $14,000 worth of savings. This isn’t nearly enough to retire on. There’s also been a vast looting of pension funds, largely by Wall Street. That’s why the investment banks have had to pay tens of billions of dollars of penalties for cheating pension funds and other investors. The current risk-free rate of return is 0.1% on government bonds, so the pension funds don’t have enough money to pay pensions at the rate that their junk economics advisors forecast. The money that people thought was going to be available for their retirement, all of a sudden isn’t. The pretense is that nobody could have forecast this!
There are so many corporate pension funds that are going bankrupt that the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation doesn’t have enough money to bail them out. The PBGC is in deficit. If you’re going to be a corporate raider, if you’re going to be a Governor Romney or whatever and you take over a company, you do what Sam Zell did with the Chicago Tribune: You loot the pension fund, you empty it out to pay the bondholders that have lent you the money to buy out the company. You then tell the workers, “I’m sorry there is nothing there. It’s wiped out.” Half of the employee stock ownership programs go bankrupt. That was already a critique made in the 1950s and ‘60s. — Michael Hudson, Stock Market Investing: Good Enough for Public Employee and Union Pension Funds
Economy:
The Federal Debt has Gone Up 400% Since the War on Terror Began! (See Chart Below)
The Bizarre Action in U.S. Treasuries Is Linked to the U.S. National Debt and the Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 258 points but the yield on the 10-Year U.S. Treasury fell below 1.50 percent. In a normal market, if stocks are rallying that means there is confidence in the trajectory of economic growth in the U.S. When yields are collapsing on U.S. Treasuries, that means there is no confidence of sustained growth in the economy. So you can see why yesterday’s market activity is a serious contradiction of norms. We believe the Treasury market is already discounting (looking ahead and factoring in) what the next recession is going to look like because of constraints on how much fiscal spending the Federal government can deploy. By Pam Martens And Russ Martens
The Commonwealth of Britain Bill Proposed by Tony Benn And Seconded By Jeremy Corbyn In 1991 Is Even More Urgent Today I think anyone who considers themselves a radical democratic should support this bill — Tariq Ali:
The monarchy would be abolished and the constitutional status of the Crown ended;
The Church of England would be disestablished;
The head of state would be a president, elected by a joint sitting of both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament
The functions of the royal prerogative would be transferred to Parliament;
The Privy Council would be abolished, and replaced by a Council of State;
The House of Lords would be replaced by an elected House of the People, with equal representation of men and women;
The House of Commons would similarly have equal representation of men and women;
England, Scotland and Wales would have their own devolved National Parliaments with responsibility for devolved matters as agreed;
County Court judges and magistrates would be elected; and
British jurisdiction over Northern Ireland would be ended.
The judiciary would be reformed and a National Legal Service would be created
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!
Quotes of the Day:
Brazil has gotten a huge amount of bad press with the fires in the Amazon with the emphasis on the harm its development policies are doing to efforts to limit global warming. While the policies of Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, are disastrous, there is an important part of the story that is being left out of most discussions.The reason that we are worried about global warming is because rich countries, most importantly the United States, have been spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for well over a century, while destroying the native forests on their lands. They also have paid to have forests in other countries destroyed in order to meet their resource needs. This is the context in which the destruction of the Amazon is a worldwide problem of enormous proportions. (The Amazon is treasure which should be preserved even if global warming was not a crisis, but that is a different matter.) — Brazil, the Amazon, and Global Warming
In the case of rubber tires, the problem is more complex than mere latex allergy, although this may well turn out to be a serious public health problem by itself. The high dollar cost of truck freight, private automobile commuting, and maintenance of our highway infrastructure must be counted as major sacrifices to our rubber-tired transportation system. Furthermore, fine particle air pollution now kills an estimated 60,000 Americans in cities each year. [7]And global warming is a serious threat to many nations from many viewpoints. (See REHW #429, #430.) However, from the viewpoint of our most important national treasure — our self-governing democracy — the systematic sabotage of the nation’s electric/rail mass transit systems by automobile corporations points up a most serious problem: the ability of “private” corporations to effect sweeping changes in our public life and culture, without public accountability or even debate. If we ever hope to achieve a sustainable environment, and re-establish a fair economy and a working democracy, this is a key problem we will have to acknowledge and address. — Peter Montague, TIRE DUST
