Skip to content
Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/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, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Image of the Day:
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. Abraham Lincoln
In his book, Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?, New York: Harper & Row, 1967, King wrote the course that he was planning to take in the fight for economic equality: There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities… The coalition of an energized section of labor, Negroes, unemployed, and welfare recipients may be the source of power that reshapes economic relationships and ushers in a breakthrough to a new level of social reform. . . . The total elimination of poverty, now a practical responsibility, the reality of equality in race relations and other profound structural changes in society may well begin here.
Videos of the Day:
United States:
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 Reublicrats 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. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay
Vaccine Apartheid Threatens Everyone Vaccine Apartheid in the US It became apparent soon after the pandemic began that African American and Latino populations had disproportionately higher cases, higher hospitalisations and higher death rates than whites. For the first time, many Americans were made aware that this is due to the worse conditions for non-whites in health services, higher unemployment, lower wages and economic conditions, poor housing, transportation, homelessness and more. This began to reveal to sections of the public that underneath it all was systematic, institutionalised racial oppression.The Black Lives Matter movement reinforced growing awareness of this, beginning with police murders and general attacks including arrests that funnelled into mass incarceration of Blacks and Latinos.This overall oppression is now being added to through vaccination apartheid. By Barry Sheppard
Covid-19: a Nation at War? The full impact the Covid pandemic is revealed in a recent AMA study that notes “in counties where the population was substantially non-white with a median income defined as $60,240, the COVID-19 death rate was more than nine times higher when compared to counties that are substantially white with the same median income.” It adds, “the COVID-19 infection and death rates were nearly three times higher in substantially non-white counties with higher median incomes when compared to substantially white, higher income counties. ….” By David Rosen
Alexander Hamilton Meets RBG and the Supremes In 1788 in The Federalist Papers, “Publius” (aka Alexander Hamilton) argued that the judiciary branch of the American republic would have less power than the executive and the legislative branches. ”It may be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment,” he wrote. If only it were so. Contrary to Hamilton’s wishes, the judiciary, and especially the U.S. Supreme Court, has exercised both force and will for hundreds of years. While it has rubber stamped freedom for corporations and the few, it has often annihilated life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the many. By Jonah Raskin
Envoronment:
Lithium, Batteries and Climate Change The transition to green energy does not have to be powered by destructive and poisonous mineral extraction. I have spent the last year working on a book called Fight the Fire: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs. Most of it is about both the politics and the engineering of any possible transition that can avert catastrophic climate breakdown. One thing I had to think about long and hard was lithium and car batteries. By Jonathan Neale
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist: Freedom Rider: Forced Labor in the U.S. Forced labor of Uyghurs in China is questionable, but there is absolute proof that incarcerated people in this country are forced to work for little or no pay.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor: Ugandans Still Resisting Museveni’s Play to Stay in Power
“Radically rude” poet Stella Nyanzi and opposition leader Kizza Besigye join Bobi Wine in rejecting Museveni’s claim to have been rightfully re-elected.
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor:
There is no Color-Blind Road to Socialism in the United States
The Democratic Party is not anti-racist because of its “diversity”; it is in fact becoming a more effective agent of a racist and imperialist state.
By Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
B-B-B-Black Lives M-M-M-Matter… Unless you listening to loud music; shoveling snow; Or own a phone or car…
Former Inland Empire BLM:
Black Lives Matter Inland Empire Announces Break WIth BLM Global Network Black Lives Matter Inland Empire, in an open letter, last week announced its departure from the cash-heavy Black Lives Global Network.
Minkah Makalani: Cedric Robinson and the Origins of Race An examination Robinson’s body of work can enrich our understanding of racial capitalism and offer additional tools for overcoming our political impasse.
The Left Lens presents Dr. Cornel West, 7pm EST Thurs Feb 11
The United States celebrates Black History Month every February but does so with little regard to the Black Radical Tradition for social justice and liberation. Dr. Cornel West joins co-hosts Margaret Kimberley and Danny Haiphong to discuss key aspects of the Black Radical Tradition and their relevance to the current situation confronting Black Americans and the rest of humanity both in the U.S. and around the world. Dr. Cornel West is a public intellectual and professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University.
David Rosen: The Kidnapping Club
Northern free Blacks as well as self-liberated former slaves lived in fear of being kidnapped by organized slave catchers in New York City.
Joshua F.J. Inwood and Anna Livia Brand: Slave-built Infrastructure and Reparations US cities from Atlanta to New York City still use buildings, roads, ports and rail lines built by enslaved people.
Mya Shone: The Vaccine Distribution Crisis: Capitalism in its Death Agony The hoarding of existing supply and the refusal to create a vast public infrastructure capable of producing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines are inherent consequences of capitalism.
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Inflation Charts The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.
Are We Watching the Trial of Trump or the Invisible Hand of the Koch Machine? The shadowy escalations of Koch money and power in U.S. politics over the past four decades has far outpaced mainstream media’s ability to quantify it to the public. The media deludes itself that it is dealing with the problem by talking about the symptoms of corporate and billionaire money in political campaigns while ignoring the actual disease – the Party of Koch. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Haiti: The Fight Against Dictatorship And The Revolutionary Struggle For Democracy The despotic President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, is refusing to step down, while the impotent bourgeois opposition appears incapable of forcing him out. The Haitian masses must break with the rotten bourgeois regime altogether, and establish a revolutionary constituent assembly. By Rob Lyon
Education, Health, Science, 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity,2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
Quotes 0f the Day: