During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
Always Remember That Obamba Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature, Started the United States Capitalist Austerity Program — The Race to the Botom or the Pauperization of the 99%!
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!
Due to Capitalism’s Drive Towards Environment Genocide, The Slogan From The Manifesto Of The Communist Party, “Workers Of The World, Unite. You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains!” We should edit it, to read, Workers Of The World, Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains and the Survivial of Humanity to Gain! — Roland Sheppard
When 26 billionaire have the same wealth as half the world population. It’s clear the system is broken. It’s time for real change. — Jeremy Corbyn
Now is the time to throw off all hesitation, open up new fronts of struggle and to launch every protest, demonstration, and anti-imperialist action – from the ballot box to the barricades – as an act to deepen the crisis of imperialism. Every protest against police and white civilian murder of our people, every mass mobilization to demand the end to the cruel, bloody economic war against Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, Korea and Russia must be seen as our part in turning the imperialist wars into wars against imperialism!” — Omali Yeshitela, Chair of the Black is Back Coalition.
In the decade since the governments of Mexico and the U.S. launched their joint war on drug trafficking, scores of high-level traffickers have been killed or captured by authorities. Along the way, a staggering number of lives have been shattered. At times, the rate of killing in Mexico has outpaced Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Researchers have documented drops in the life expectancy of Mexican men as a result of the violence. On top of the deaths, the epidemic of disappearances in Mexico stemming from organized crime and criminalized security forces has been described as the worst in recent Latin American history. All the while, the more than $1.5 billion Washington has directed to Mexican counternarcotics and the estimated $79 billion put up by the Mexican government for safety and public security have made little meaningful impact on the amount of drugs flowing north. Mexican cartels, according to the DEA’s most recent annual assessment, continue to represent the most significant criminal threat to the U.S. — though, the DEA points out, the drugs primarily responsible for killing Americans don’t come from Mexico at all; they’re produced legally and locally in the form of prescription opioids. — The Hot Land: After an Uprising in Mexico, the Return of the Narco Warlords
Julian Assange’s Extradition Process Is ‘A Charade’ Filmmaker John Pilger attended Julian Assange’s last court hearing and observed not only that Assange is visibly suffering from prison mistreatment, but his defense is not being given a fair chance to make its case against his extradition to the US.
Protesters in Chile Have Been ‘Murdered, Tortured, and Disappeared’ Chile’s President Piñera says foreign intervention and a conspiracy are behind the recent protests. But protesters say what’s happening is an explosion of long-contained rage against poverty, inequality, and oppression.
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.
Bernie Sanders Says Apple’s $2.5 Billion Home Loan Program a Distraction From Hundreds of Billions in Tax Avoidance That Created California Housing Crisis “We cannot rely on corporate tax evaders to solve California’s housing crisis.” Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday sharply criticized an announcement from tech giant Apple that the company would invest $2.5 billion in helping to asssuage the effects of California’s housing crisis—a crisis that Apple has contributed to by driving prices up as the company has expanded in the San Francisco area. “Apple’s announcement that it is entering the real estate lending business is an effort to distract from the fact that it has helped create California’s housing crisis—all while raking in $800 million of taxpayer subsidies, and keeping a quarter trillion dollars of profit offshore, in order to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes,” Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, said in a statement By Eoin Higgins
Wealth and All That Glitters The generation of baby boomers gave rise to a stable of cultural heroes who became multimillionaires. They were actors, writers, musicians and some of those took part in protest. There was one major difference about this stable that set them apart from the rest of us during that era of protest, and that was they became very, very rich, often on the left’s dime, to where they had more in common with the few and the wealthy than the rest of us who had to pay bills and make ends meet. We didn’t have a choice of whether to show up to work. We were free in a Dickensian way, in that we were free to starve if we chose. Someone on the left noted a few years ago, making an observation of one celebrity (a movie star) from the stable, that a person of extreme wealth could show up at a protest, possibly get arrested, and leave as that person had come, in a limousine. Very few who went to the barricades during the civil rights and antiwar movements got to come and go via limousine. It’s not that the left didn’t benefit by the largess of wealthy donors and celebrities, it’s just that most of those on the left didn’t have much in common with them besides principles, but principles are easy to defend in extreme comfort. By Howard LisnoffMark Zuckerberg is a Rich Jerk Zuckerberg is not a political philosopher concerned about the public good. There is a zero evidence he is a deep thinker of any sort. He is a Harvard boy who stumbled into a good idea and had the necessary connections to get very rich from it: end of story. It is bizarre that so many people look to the country’s billionaires to tell us how the world should be constructed or think that these people have any great insight into such matters. Being a billionaire means that you were successful at getting very rich. There is no reason to believe that billionaires have any more insight into major policy issues than anyone else. By Dean Baker
Environment:
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Largest Sentence Commutation in US History: Nearly 500 Inmates Walk Free After Oklahoma Voters Demand Reform “That this is largely flying under the radar is probably good—a sign of how far criminal justice reform has come. Oklahoma voters’ approval of a referendum in 2016 allowed for nearly 500 inmates to walk free on Monday from the state’s massive prison system—the largest single-day commutation in U.S. history. Four hundred and sixty-two people had their sentences commuted as a result of Question 780, which asked voters if they approved of recategorizing many felonies, including drug possession and minor property crimes, as misdemeanors. The referendum passed by a 16 percent margin. By Julia Conley
Black Voters Won’t Save the Democrats If the Democrats continue to behave as if the working class is white, they won’t be able to count on huge Black turnouts at the polls, said activist and public interest attorney Malaika Jabali. Many Blacks in the economically depressed Midwest opted out of voting in the last presidential election, believing the Democrats “don’t care about me, so why should I care about them,” said Jabali
Black Voters Won’t Save the Democrats If the Democrats continue to behave as if the working class is white, they won’t be able to count on huge Black turnouts at the polls, said activist and public interest attorney Malaika Jabali. Many Blacks in the economically depressed Midwest opted out of voting in the last presidential election, believing the Democrats “don’t care about me, so why should I care about them,” said Jabali.
Fundamental Black and Native Opposition to White Setller State Blacks and Native Americans continue to pose a threat to the “conquistador white settler nation,” agues Tiffany King, author of “The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies.” King is a professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Georgia. “There are impulses within both Black abolition and Native decolonization that are fundamentally about ending the US,” said King.
Green New Deal vs White Supremacy The fight for a Green New Deal is bringing together a “multiracial, multiclass coalition” that is meeting their environmental, economic and psychological needs “in a far more efficient and better way than it ever was under white supremacist capitalist capitalism,” said activist and State University of New York English professor Nicholas Powers. Powers is author of “The Ground Below
Mumia: Even Angela Davis Shocked by US Mass Incarceration Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, notes that even trailblazing prison abolition scholar Angela Davis, herself a former political prisoner, underestimated Americans’ willingness to incarcerate millions of their fellows. Abu Jamal quoted Davis, who wrote that, back in the late Sixties she could not fathom that the US prison population would increase ten-fold in the next few decades. “No, this will never happen,” she wrote. “Not unless this country plunges into fascism.”
Crushing Anti-Mining Protest in Australia The Prime Minister of Australia is fuming. Having made his mark on Australian politics by being the mining sector’s most avid defender, Scott Morrison was disturbed by the week’s events in Melbourne that saw clashes between police and protesters outside the sixth annual international mining and resources conference. It made sense for the protesters to kick up a fuss at the big ticket event. IMARC, as the site states, “is where the global mining leaders connect with technology, finance and the future. It is Australia’s largest mining event bringing together over 7,000 decision makers, mining leaders, policy makers, investors, commodity buyers, technical experts, innovators and educators from over 100 countries to Melbourne for four days of learning, deal-making and unparalleled networking.” By Binoy Kampmark
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!
China Opens A New University Every Week It is part of a silent revolution that is causing a huge shift in the composition of the world’s population of graduates. By Andreas Schleicher
Quotes of the Day:
Mark Zuckerberg is a Rich Jerk Zuckerberg is not a political philosopher concerned about the public good. There is a zero evidence he is a deep thinker of any sort. He is a Harvard boy who stumbled into a good idea and had the necessary connections to get very rich from it: end of story. It is bizarre that so many people look to the country’s billionaires to tell us how the world should be constructed or think that these people have any great insight into such matters. Being a billionaire means that you were successful at getting very rich. There is no reason to believe that billionaires have any more insight into major policy issues than anyone else. By Dean Baker
