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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!
Images of the Day:
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
. . .There are some capitalist countries that question democracy in Cuba. There can be no democracy better than a democracy where the workers, the peasants, the students hold the arms. [applause] To all the Western countries that question democracy in Cuba, I say: Go ahead and give the arms to the workers, to the peasants, to the students, and let us see if you can start hurling tear gas canisters to put down a strike, or at any organization that struggles for peace [applause], or at students. We would see if these countries could send out the police, covered with shields and all that equipment that makes them look like astronauts. We would see if these countries could attack the masses with dogs every time there is a strike or a peaceful demonstration or a people’s struggle. I think the litmus test for democracy is to arm the people. [applause]When defense becomes the task of the people and arms become the prerogative of all the people, then there is democracy. Meanwhile, there are specialized police teams and armies to put down the people when the people show discontent over the abuses and injustice of a bourgeois system. It is the same in a Third World country as in a developed capitalist country. — Fidel Castro
Corbyn has highlighted the staggering wealth of the super rich, with the top 10 percent of people owning 44 percent of the wealth. The giant corporations are getting away with murder, with the likes of Amazon paying only £220m tax on £10.9bn profits last year. At Labour’s campaign launch meeting, Corbyn attacked the billionaires and promised that a Labour government would go after the wealthy elite who exploit a “rigged system” to amass their fortunes. This has a big impact. Britain has around 150 billionaires – 0.0002 percent of the population – who flaunt their wealth and ill-gotten gains. Meanwhile, 14 million people live in poverty. These billionaires have amassed their wealth and power by waging a relentless class war against working people. — The People Vs The Billionaires
It is widely recognized that income inequality has skyrocketed in recent decades. Incomes at the top of the distribution have grown rapidly, far outpacing income growth at the bottom. Recent research also shows that prices have risen more quickly for people at the bottom of the income distribution than for those at the top —a phenomenon dubbed “inflation inequality.” An implication of this new finding is that we may be under- estimating income inequality and poverty rates in the United States—two national statistics that rely heavily on the annual inflation rate as part of their calculation. In this brief, we utilize an adjusted inflation index that accounts for inflation inequality across the income distribution and re-estimate recent trends in poverty and income inequality from 2004 to 2018. Our adjusted inflation index indicates that 3.2 million more people are classified as living in poverty in 2018, and that real household income for the bottom 20 percent of the in- come distribution actually declined by nearly 7 percent since 2004. These results show that inflation inequali- ty significantly accentuates both the incidence of poverty and income inequality. — The Costs of Being Poor: Inflation Inequality Leads to Three Million More People In Poverty
Videos Of the Day:
Here is a rare recording of Albert Einstein reading his speech on the immediate aftermath of World War II, The War is Won, But the Peace is Not
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.
New Report Details How ‘Inflation Inequality’ Punishes the Poor—and Helps Undercount Them by Millions “I’m hoping that this new report will help policymakers understand the reality of the economy for low-income workers. A new report released Tuesday claims that the number of people in poverty in the U.S. is being undercounted by three million due to “inflation inequality,” the process by which prices rise more quickly for those on the bottom end of the economy. Groundwork Collaborative’s “The Cost of Being Poor” (pdf) examines the way that inflation inequality is making it difficult to accurately calculate the number of people living in poverty.” By Eoin Higgins
Environment:
‘Vindication’ for Climate Activists as UK Court Rules London Ban on Extinction Rebellion Protests Unlawful “XR protesters have been raising the alarm about the climate crisis. We need to listen to that alarm, not outlaw it.” By Andrea Germanos
The Never-Ending Curse of Coal Last week Murray Energy, one of the largest coal mining corporations in the nation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That makes it the fifth coal company to do so in the last year. While the owners made millions, they are bailing into bankruptcy and leaving behind massive environmental disasters, crushed communities and unfunded pension debts — all of which are now looking for taxpayer dollars to somehow remedy. By George Ochenski
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
The World is Rising Up Against Austerity and the Rule of the Rich, When Will We? Black political captivity in the Democratic Party has a lot to do with why there is no clear peace movement in the United States. “U.S. imperialism has imposed a globalized regime of capitalist terror that has left half of the world’s population living in extreme poverty.” The pessimism spread by the so-called “Resistance” to Donald Trump serves one purpose and one purpose only: to desensitize the masses of people in the U.S. to the misery of endless austerity and war. Donald Trump and Russia have served as scapegoats for the political crisis plaguing Washington. Hillary Clinton and her section of the neoliberal oligarchy have opposed Trump on the basis that he is a traitor to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and empire. Hillary Clinton believes Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein are “assets” of Russia and Trump, Joe Biden is campaigning on the lie that Russia is undermining his disastrous 2020 electoral campaign, and even Bernie Sanders calls Trump the most dangerous political force in the United States. Such a reactionary political atmosphere has ensured that the rebellion occurring against austerity in the U.S. remains shackled to the electoral arena. By Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
BAR Book Forum: Dario Azzellini’s “Communes and Workers’ Control in Venezuela” Millions of Venezuelans are building socialism from below, and most of them are Black, brown and female. “The mainstream media, and even many people considering themselves leftists, cannot understand why the Maduro government is still in power.”In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Dario Azzellini . Azzellini is a visiting fellow at the Latin American Studies Program, Cornell University. His book is Communes and Workers’ Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below. By Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Freedom Rider: America Needs Protest A thousand young people demonstrated in Brooklyn, jumping over turnstiles in solidarity with others arrested and brutalized by the cops. “There is no lack of reasons to take action here in the belly of the beast.” In recent months mass protests involving millions of people have emerged in countries such as Haiti, Ecuador, and Chile. In each instance the spark was unique to that nation. Haitians are angry that officials stole millions of dollars from Venezuela’s Petro Caribe project which was meant to meet the needs of the people. Ecuadoreans rose up after their president accepted IMF loans with the usual strings of austerity and suffering attached. Political corruption, theft from the people, the desire for real democracy, and interference from the United States and its allies all play a role in these events.By Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
Donald in the Donbass, Biden in the Crossfire Whether Trump tried to make an impeachable arms deal with Ukraine or not, “the last thing Ukraine needs is more weapons of any kind.” “That those weapons risk heating up the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, that’s in no one’s interest.” The House Impeachment inquiry has been at the top of the news since it began, but the event it revolves around—the transfer of nearly 400 million dollars worth of US weapons into one of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones—has not. Many questions about the nature of this transaction remain unanswered. By Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
Liberalism Will Get Us Killed Much of the internet chatter over low- hanging fruit issues fails to address our material realities within a settler colony. Bernie Sanders and many Black parents are wrong on how to comport ourselves around the cops.”“Loose lips sink ships” and liberals’ inability to shut up substantiates that saying. They are constantly exposing contradictions most are too stubborn or too isolated from electoral politics to notice—-liberalism will get us killed. By Erica Caines
Who’s Afraid of Alice Walker? Opera singer and producer Earl Hazell reminds us that standing up for artists and their vision is standing up for free speech, democracy, and ourselves. “Playing the role of ‘Celie’ while not believing in her right to be loved, or to express her love in any way she chooses, would be a betrayal of women’s right to be free.” By Earl Hazell
Mass Shootings and the Misguided and Pernicious Push for “Gun Control” The atrocities committed by white male shooters are part and parcel of US behavior both domestically and around the world. “’Gun control’ entails giving the state a monopoly on weapons, whose foot soldiers (the police) are armed, racist, and militarized.” “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” – Karl Marx Many have correctly pointed out that the wave of mass shootings which plagues the United States is almost exclusively perpetrated by white men with similar social discontents, and occurs here in the imperial core at a far higher rate than abroad. However, little has been said about why this is the case. The truth of the matter is that, as a settler colony, mass murder is fundamental to our history By Enzo Calandra
The FBI Has a Long History of Treating Political Dissent as Terrorism Sting operations and the use of informants and agents provocateurs have become a staple of FBI operations. “The bureau’s propensity for the policing of political dissent has remained largely unchallenged.” While terrorism in the U.S. is relatively rare, over the last decade most politically motivated violence has come at the hands of far-right extremists. Despite that reality, the FBI has devoted disproportionate resources to the surveillance of nonviolent civil society groups and protest movements, particularly on the left, using its mandate to protect national security to target scores of individuals posing no threat but opposing government policies and practices. By Alice Speri
Europe’s Greedy Lending to Africa Drives the Migration That Fuels the EU’s Xenophobic Politics The reasons for major flows of migration to Europe actually come from within Europe itself. “It is as if there is a war, and Europeans must arm themselves against invaders.” If you ask an African migrant in Europe who came across the Mediterranean Sea in a boat if they would make the journey again, most of them would say “yes.” Many of them had been on vans and trucks that took them across the dangerous Sahara Desert, and many of them had been on board vessels that struggled to get across the choppy waters. They might have seen their fellow migrants die of thirst or of drowning, but none of that halts their conviction that they’d cross the sands and the seas again. By Vijay Prashad
In Langston’s Home By BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
In Langston’s home Harlem
You do as Langston Did
Love the Jazz, the Blues,
Words, acts, pages and stages
In Langston’s home Harlem
You do as Langston Did
Love the People, their
Problems, pains and triumphs (Read More)
Labor:
Economy:
Dangerous Liaisons: New York Fed and JPMorgan’s Incestuous Relationship he Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) is just one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks around the country. But it has amassed enormous powers for itself since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Three of those powers dwarf all others: the ability to create money electronically at the push of a button; the accepted right to meddle in the markets; and the supervision of some of the largest bank holding ompanies in America. After Wall Street blew itself up under the indulging and incompetent supervision of the New York Fed in 2008 and it was exposed that the Fed had secretly created $29 trillion in electronic money to bail out zombie banks – most of that funneled out by the New York Fed – most rational folks would have assumed that Congress would have stripped it of supervisory and money-printing powers for bailouts. Insanely, that did not happen and here we are today with the same deeply-conflicted New York Fed creating its own money to dole out $690 billion a week in super-cheap loans to unnamed securities firms while buying up $60 billion a month in the debt of the United States. (The Fed doesn’t want you to call the $60 billion a month QE4 because that would strongly suggest that this is just Stage II of the continuing 2008 bailout of Wall Street and that QE-Infinity is coming.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
The Fed’s Wall Street Bailout May Go into Overdrive in December The Fed is in deep fear, while also in deep denial, about what happened last December. Its fear is that it could happen again this December. Its denial is that its lax supervision of the Wall Street mega banks is largely responsible for the mess.The stock market news on December 24 of last year was not what folks want to be reading about on Christmas Eve. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had plunged 653 points on Christmas Eve and headline writers across major media were declaring the month to have been the worst December for stocks since the Great Depression. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Britain: The Corbyn Surge Begins – We Can Win! This general election is going to mark a fundamental turning-point in Britain. It will have colossal ramifications internationally. The political ground has begun to shift as a result of Corbyn taking Labour’s election campaign out into the country, raising the class issues and attacking capitalism. A recent YouGov survey for The Sunday Times found that Labour gained six points within a matter of days into the campaign, slashing the Tory lead. The Liberal Democrats slipped three points, demonstrating the sharp polarisation that is taking place. And this is just the beginning.
Algeria: Huge Revolution Day Marches – Now Prepare A General Strike! The huge demonstration on 1 November marks a high point for the Algerian Hirak movement, which has been going on for an uninterrupted 37 weeks. The regime has decided to call for presidential elections on 12 December, which the masses have correctly rejected. The slogan of a general strike to stop the elections and force the ousting of the regime is gaining ground. By Jorge Martin
Bolivia: How The Working Class Must Defeat The Coup The Bolivian general election, on 20 October, produced a victory for Evo Morales of the ruling MAS party, but on a much-reduced majority, revealing how the class collaborationist policies of his government have alienated sections of its traditional base of support. The fact that Evo avoided a second round by the smallest of margins was used by the right wing to claim fraud and start a campaign of mobilisations on the streets. While there are different elements involved in the protests, in the last few days the initiative has passed to the camp of the “civic movement”, organised by the most reactionary elements of Bolivia’s capitalist oligarchy, based in Santa Cruz. The Bolivian comrades of Lucha de Clases have issued this statement about how to fend off the coup threat.
Evo Morales: Fraud Allegations Are Pretext for Coup Morales rejected violence against some Bolivians, explaining that such attacks have racist and discriminatory roots to them. Bolivian President Evo Morales insisted Tuesday that allegations of alleged fraud made by the opposition are a pretext for executing a coup, he told thosuands of supporters from different social movements as they gathered in the center of La Paz. The president said that fraud is an “invention” given the impossibility of the right to govern the South American nation through the polls.
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: