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Image of the Day:
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!
Quotes 0f the Day:
Claudius was content to be successful within the Roman imperial framework. Guilty of his own excesses of violence, he never tried to turn the empire back into a republic or negotiate a new set of relations with Rome’s far-flung possessions. He knew only to expand. Biden, too, operates within the existing system of American dominance. It remains to be seen whether he will dramatically reduce the U.S. military footprint and work with other major powers to redefine international relations at a time of multiple global crises. If he doesn’t, America will risk the same fate that befell Rome after the death of Claudius. In 54 CE, a new emperor took power who made Caligula look like a cub scout. This latest Caesar made sure that the good that Claudius did during his 13-year reign was indeed interred with his bones. “Nero practiced every kind of obscenity,” writes the gossipy chronicler Suetonius, adding that the new emperor “annulled many of Claudius’ decrees and edicts, on the grounds that he’d been a doddering old idiot.” The trick, then, is not just to reverse the evils of one’s predecessor but to make those reversals stick. That, in turn, will require not just quick fixes but turning the United States into a truly cooperative world power.— The Claudius Presidency?
Videos of the Day:
The Democrats Role in Distracting With Identity Politics Question: We’re waiting to see how the rhetoric of the new Biden administration will play out in actual policies. Michael Hudson’s Reply : Biden’s long political career has been right-wing. He’s the senator from Delaware, the country’s most pro-corporate state – which is why most U.S. corporations are incorporated there. As such, he represents the banking and credit-card industry. He sponsored the regressive bankruptcy “reform” written and put into his hands by the credit-card companies. As a budget hawk, he’s rejected MMT, and also “Medicare for all” as if it is too expensive for the government to afford – thereby making the private sector afford to pay 18% of US GDP for health-insurance monopolies. Hardly by surprise, Biden has chosen cabinet members as corporate lobbyists, including the new Secretary of Defense. And on February 9 he invited Jamie Dimon and other business leaders to the White House and asked them what they recommended. These billionaires said that they didn’t need $1.400, so why should anyone else? They pretended that spending money might cause inflation – yet we are in the midst of debt deflation and falling disposable income for most families.
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
The Average American Pay Tax on Half of Their Wealth, Shouldn’t Rich Americans? Might the United States, home to the world’s wealthiest people, sometime soon sport a tax on wealth? Media outlets the nation over have begunspeculating on just that question. But many of these reflections are missing the point: The United States already has a wealth tax.We call this already existing levy the “property tax,” and almost all Americans feel its pinch — with one exception. The rich. America’s current “wealth tax” only taxes the category of wealth that makes up the bulk of the net worth of average Americans. The financial assets that make up the bulk of wealthy people’s net worth — stocks and bonds, for instance — face no wealth tax. Wealthy people, of course, like things this way. The rest of us should be aghast. How aghast? Let’s compare how our existing “wealth tax” treats the exceedingly rich and everybody else. By Sam Pizzigati
All Risk, No Reward: The Perils and Absurdity of Iraq War 4.0 The muddled US military mission and ongoing troop presence creates nearly all the conditions for the latest crisis. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken might have been “outraged” by a rocket attack on a U.S. base in northern Iraq – that killed a foreign contractor and wounded an American service member and several other contractors – but he shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, it’s the muddled US military mission and ongoing troop presence itself that creates nearly all the conditions for current crisis. That this is particular truth tablet might be rather uncomfortable to swallow doesn’t make it any less so. By Maj. Danny Sjursen
This Country Constantly Fails Its Most Vulnerable The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has tested the nation’s threadbare social safety net as never before. Economic crises shine a spotlight on a society’s inequities and hierarchies, as well as its commitment to support those who are most vulnerable in such grievous moments. The calamity created by Covid-19 is no exception. The economic fallout from that pandemic has tested the nation’s social safety net as never before. By Neil Moralee
Environment:
Investigation Into Chemical Exposure From Fracking in Pennsylvania Provokes Call for Rapid Phaseout “Pennsylvania’s children should not be used as laboratory rats,” said biologist Sandra Steingraber, who called fracking “an uncontrolled human experiment” that involves “toxic exposures.” Sandra Steingraber of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, a group that has long sounded the alarm about the impact of fracking—which largely affects poor and rural households—responded by calling for an end to the process. “Consider[ed] together with the results of previous studies, the findings of this multi-part investigation serve as a powerful moral indictment of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Health, which has long privileged gas industry interests over protecting the health of Pennsylvania residents,” Steingraber said. “Pennsylvania’s children should not be used as laboratory rats in an uncontrolled human experiment involv[ing] toxic exposures.” “In light of today’s revelatory investigation, Concerned Health Professionals of New York reiterates our call: The risks and harms of fracking to public health are inherent to its operation,” Steingraber added. “The only method of mitigating fracking’s grave threats to public health is a rapid, comprehensive phaseout of fracking. By Jessica Corbett 
‘The Time Is Now’: Survey Finds Overwhelming International Support for Greater Environmental Protection Ahead of UN Climate Conference “We face huge challenges protecting the environment, but global public opinion may no longer be chief among them.” An international survey conducted by the University of Cambridge and YouGov ahead of this November’s COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and published on Monday, found overwhelming support around the world for governments taking more robust action to protect the environment amid the worsening climate crisis. In all of the countries except the U.S., at least 90% of baseline respondents agreed with the statement. In the U.S., the figure was 79%. By Brett Wilkins
America’s Dirty Divide: Chicago Hunger Strike Against Recycling Plant Grows: ‘We’re Starving Ourselves to Save People’s Lives’ Activists oppose metal shredder moving to East Side, a low-income Latino community reeling from the effects of industrial pollution Hunger strikers on Chicago’s Southeast Side have gone nearly four weeks without food to protest against environmental racism, and now the city is beginning to reconsider its stance on the controversial metal shredder that started it all. “I share your commitment to equity and fully understand that our frontline communities, particularly on the South and West Sides of Chicago, have been significantly impacted by environmental pollution and other compounding environmental issues, for multiple generations,” wrote Lori Lightfoot, the city’s mayor, in a letter from last Tuesday. By Taylor Moore
The Ministry For The Future: A Passionate Call to Save the Earth Kim Stanley Robinson’s excit ing new novel delivers a powerful vision of Earth in crisis and Earth transformed, but fails as a program for change With all the environmental threats that humanity faces, it can be hard to be optimistic. This is reflected in the plethora of disaster novels that have appeared in recent years, whether inspired by climate change or pandemic, that explore in the appalling consequences of disease, floods, famine and so-on. Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel also deals with these threats, in particular the twin ecological crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, so I approached it with trepidation — after 2020, who needs more doom and gloom? Reviewed by Martin Empson
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 1, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Two US Parties, One Imperial Policy “We should not expect any fundamental alteration” in US foreign policy under President Joe Biden, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace, at a joint webinar of the US Peace Council and the Venezuelan section of the Committee for International Solidarity and Struggle for Peace. “Both of these imperialist parties are committed to the same fundamental agenda: to maintain and expand US global colonial capitalist hegemony,” said Baraka, in a talk entitled, “The People’s Struggles and the Emerging Situation in the United States.”
“Fascism” Invoked When Bad Things Happen to White People The question of fascism emerges “when one sector of the ruling class introduces measures that bear some resemblance to the colonial condition that Africans and other oppressed peoples live with all the time,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. Yeshitela cautioned against “uniting with one sector of the ruling class versus the other on this issue called fascism.” The Black Is Black Coalition will hold a webinar at noon ET Saturday, March 6, on “Fascism, Neoliberalism, and the Way Forward.”
Jamal Journal: Mumia Says He Has Covid The nation’s best known political prisoner told the publisher of The Jamal Journal “that he believes he has Covid. His breathing feels like an elephant sitting on his lungs,” said Pam Africa, who is also coordinator of International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. The new issue of the Journal includes a petition demanding that Philadelphia DA Larry Krassner – a purported progressive – stop standing in the way of Mumia’s freedom.
Labor:
Economy:
Dean Baker: Bartenders and Public Pension Fund Investment Advisers If you were worried that you had a drinking problem, you probably would not ask your neighborhood bartender for advice (Let’s assume the bartender owns the bar, so they pocket the cash from the drinks.) The bartender may be a very nice person, and may actually be your friend, but they obviously have a material interest in keeping you coming back to the bar. It is the same story for pension funds when it comes to their various pension advisers. The pension funds’ boards (the people who actually are in charge of running the fund) are often on good terms with the people who manage their money. In many cases, they have used the same group of advisers for years or even decades. Nonetheless, the fund’s investment advisers are in the same relationship to the pension fund as the bartender is to the person worried about their drinking problem. The advisers are making money off the fund. This simple point is important to keep in mind in considering the reactions of pension fund advisers to proposals for financial transactions tax. The goal of a financial transactions tax is to raise revenue for the government while reducing the volume of excess trading.
World:
UK failed to Inform EU Countries About Almost 200 Killers and Rapists Exclusive: total of 112,490 criminal convictions not sent to relevant EU capitals over eight-year period The conviction of 109 killers, 81 rapists and a man found guilty of both crimes in UK courts was not passed on to the criminals’ home EU countries due to a massive computer failure and subsequent cover-up, the Guardian can reveal.
Michael Roberts Blog: Billionaire Hedge Fund Boss Pays Himself UK Record f £343m Sir Chris Hohn’s Children’s Investment fund reports 66% jump in profitsThere’s talk from the UK Conservative government about raising slightly the tax rate on corporate profits in tomorrow’s annual government budget proposals. But nothing about taxing the huge profits made by financial institutions from stock market speculation in the year of the COVID. . Sir Chris Hohn paid himself $479m last year after his Children’s Investment (TCI) fund (sic!), recorded a 66% jump in pre-tax profits to $695m. It is believed to be the highest annual amount ever paid to one person in Britain and equates to £940,000 a day. It is 9,000 times the average UK salary and 1,700 times the amount paid to the prime minister, Boris Johnson. Hohn, 54, previously employed the UK chancellor (finance minister), Rishi Sunak, to help run his hedge fund. The hedge fund, which is based in a townhouse in the Mayfair district in central London, is ultimately owned by a parent company in the Cayman Islands tax haven. https://www.theguardian.com/…/billionaire-hedge-fund..
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
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!: Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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!