During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. 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!
In his new book, Gore Vidal makes a scathing attack upon the bipartisan domestic and foreign policies of the US government. The introduction to this book sets its theme, that the bombings of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City on September 11, were used, respectively, to justify the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and the current “war on terrorism”. Vidal explains that these bombings were in response to the more than 200 acts of war and (ongoing) worldwide military incursions by the US government since 1945, and the concurrent erosion of the Bill of Rights. Vidal refers to Newton’s theory “that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Without condoning the attacks, Vidal explains that the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma, by Timothy McVeigh, was a response to the ongoing attacks on the Bill of Rights, and that the WTC attack, allegedly organized by Osama bin Laden, was a response to US government foreign policy/terrorism. Vidal also explains that wars are declared on nations and not on an indefinable term like “terrorism”. (As an afterthought, Vidal points out that the insurance companies do not have liabilities for an “act of war”, and so the declaration of “war on terrorism” may protect insurance companies from liabilities resulting from acts of terrorism.) —Roland Sheppard Book Review (2002), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
US has Interfered in More Elections Than Any Other Nation Glen Ford says that even if the US does prove that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, the actions don’t match the scale of America’s interference in elections across the world
Meals on Wheels Is Just the Beginning: Economist Mark Price on Trump’s Proposed Cuts Not all of Trump’s budget cuts will get people’s attention like Meals on Wheels, but they will have vicious and ongoing effects, says labor economist Mark Price of the Keystone Research Center. One example is the 20 percent cut to the Labor Department, which enforces laws related to minimum wage and food and workplace safety. By Sarah JaffeUS Ditches Human Rights Hearing in ‘Unprecedented Show of Disrespect’ ACLU had planned to drill officials on immigration, DAPL, and Muslim ban, but representatives from various departments never showed by Nadia Prupis Black Liberation/ Civil Rights: Freedom Rider: Hillary Returns How long should one stay in rehab after losing to Donald Trump? In Hillary Clinton’s case, forever. Clinton’s recent “coming back out” party in Scranton, Pennsylvania, shows that “there will be no deviation from the failed strategies which put Trump in the White House.” With nothing else to offer (except war and more war) she’s still running against Trump. “If Trump didn’t exist the Democratic Party would have had to invent him.” by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley Why Syria Still Matters in the Age of Trump Much of the U.S. “left” is confused or on the wrong side of Washington’s war against national sovereignty and self-determination in Syria. Publications like The Intercept attempt to conflate Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Donald Trump, “thus delegitimizing Assad in the eyes of the majority of the U.S. population.” The tactic is closely related to anti-Russian McCarthyism — designed to distract from the bankruptcy of Democratic policies. by Danny Haiphong The Bethesda African Cemetery: Protests Trigger Government Response African descendants have forced a delay in further eradication of ancestral burial grounds in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC. “The African graves were totally eradicated and the memory of the African River Road community erased.” The demand is straightforward: “The land holding the remains of African ancestors must be preserved as a sacred space and a museum built to educate, honor and commemorate the ‘lost’ River Road African Community.” by BAR Editor and Columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo Capitalism: Unregulated Disaster… The Gospel of the Invisible Hand instructs us that regulations are evil because they impede the holy quest for extreme profits which underpins the capitalist American Way of Life. by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner The Crimes of Israeli Apartheid A new UN report “argues that Israel is a ‘racial regime’ because its institutions are premised on maintaining a Jewish nation by techniques of suppression and expulsion.” That’s apartheid by definition, a crime against humanity. What exists is one state, “with Israel having exercised its dominion in the entire land west of the Jordan River, but a one-state with an apartheid system, with Israeli Jews in a dominant position over the Palestinians.” by Vijay Prashad The Extraordinary Lynne Stewart The author, a comrade of Lynne Stewart for well over half a century, celebrates her passion as “a movement fighter, a champion of all that is beautiful in the human soul.” Stewart put her life in service to the people. “Would it be that we all had that courage and expressed it collectively in the kind of mass struggles that are capable of bringing this damn racist, sexist, imperialist system down forever.” By Jeff MacklerRwanda: The Absolutist Truth of Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch acts as an arm of U.S. foreign policy. This phony “rights” organization backs the deportation and prosecution of Rwandan dissidents like Joseph Nkusi, who dared to maintain that Hutus were also massacred in the Rwanda bloodbath. Under a minority Tutsi dictatorship, “even using the description ‘Rwandan Genocide’ is a crime; authorities enforce a law passed in 2008 making ‘genocide against the Tutsi’ the only legal description.” by Ann Garrison The Empire’s Fifth Column in Africa: Morocco Morocco’s newfound interest in Africa is linked to NATO’s attack on Africa and the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. NATO’s destruction of Libya completely humiliated the African Union. It tore the heart out of an alternative African future, and left Africa seriously exposed once again to the Western imperial virus: a virus contemporary Morocco carries. “Morocco’s body may be in Africa but its mind is in the North Atlantic and the Persian Gulf.” by Aidan O’Brien Environment:
US Imperialism funded by the conqueredAn indepth interview by the Local Organonon US economic history, running through the key components discussed in Super Imperialism through to J is for Junk Economics. The push to recognize unearned income continues! And money. What is a free market? By Michael HudsonWorld:
Canada: NDP Leadership Race Buries Mulcair LegacyAlmost a year and a half after the Federal NDP’s disappointing election result, the party leadership race has begun in earnest. Four candidates have declared so far: Niki Ashton, Charlie Angus, Guy Caron, and Peter Julian. What is notable is that at the March 12th leadership debate none of the candidates defended the Mulcair legacy of moving the party to the right, and all appeared to be turning towards the left to some degree or another. This represents an interesting dynamic and is reflective of broader class polarization and radicalization in society. By Alex Grant
Capitalism: a history of horror without end – Part OneThe barrage of propaganda against Lenin and the Bolsheviks has begun. This year, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, we will see learned critics working to turn public opinion against the Bolsheviks and what they stood for, in an attempt to bury the truth about what the revolution was really about. The same critics conveniently put to one side the long history of brutal suppression of workers’ revolutions carried out by the class they themselves serve. By Fred Weston
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
Quote of the Day:
Reality and the U.S.-Made Famine in Yemen by Kathy Kelly
US Ditches Human Rights Hearing in ‘Unprecedented Show of Disrespect’ ACLU had planned to drill officials on immigration, DAPL, and Muslim ban, but representatives from various departments never showed by Nadia Prupis
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights: 
Freedom Rider: Hillary Returns How long should one stay in rehab after losing to Donald Trump? In Hillary Clinton’s case, forever. Clinton’s recent “coming back out” party in Scranton, Pennsylvania, shows that “there will be no deviation from the failed strategies which put Trump in the White House.” With nothing else to offer (except war and more war) she’s still running against Trump. “If Trump didn’t exist the Democratic Party would have had to invent him.” by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley 
Why Syria Still Matters in the Age of Trump Much of the U.S. “left” is confused or on the wrong side of Washington’s war against national sovereignty and self-determination in Syria. Publications like The Intercept attempt to conflate Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Donald Trump, “thus delegitimizing Assad in the eyes of the majority of the U.S. population.” The tactic is closely related to anti-Russian McCarthyism — designed to distract from the bankruptcy of Democratic policies. by Danny Haiphong 
The Bethesda African Cemetery: Protests Trigger Government Response African descendants have forced a delay in further eradication of ancestral burial grounds in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC. “The African graves were totally eradicated and the memory of the African River Road community erased.” The demand is straightforward: “The land holding the remains of African ancestors must be preserved as a sacred space and a museum built to educate, honor and commemorate the ‘lost’ River Road African Community.” by BAR Editor and Columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo 
Capitalism: Unregulated Disaster… The Gospel of the Invisible Hand instructs us that regulations are evil because they impede the holy quest for extreme profits which underpins the capitalist American Way of Life. by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner 
The Crimes of Israeli Apartheid A new UN report “argues that Israel is a ‘racial regime’ because its institutions are premised on maintaining a Jewish nation by techniques of suppression and expulsion.” That’s apartheid by definition, a crime against humanity. What exists is one state, “with Israel having exercised its dominion in the entire land west of the Jordan River, but a one-state with an apartheid system, with Israeli Jews in a dominant position over the Palestinians.” by Vijay Prashad 
The Extraordinary Lynne Stewart The author, a comrade of Lynne Stewart for well over half a century, celebrates her passion as “a movement fighter, a champion of all that is beautiful in the human soul.” Stewart put her life in service to the people. “Would it be that we all had that courage and expressed it collectively in the kind of mass struggles that are capable of bringing this damn racist, sexist, imperialist system down forever.” By Jeff Mackler
Rwanda: The Absolutist Truth of Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch acts as an arm of U.S. foreign policy. This phony “rights” organization backs the deportation and prosecution of Rwandan dissidents like Joseph Nkusi, who dared to maintain that Hutus were also massacred in the Rwanda bloodbath. Under a minority Tutsi dictatorship, “even using the description ‘Rwandan Genocide’ is a crime; authorities enforce a law passed in 2008 making ‘genocide against the Tutsi’ the only legal description.” by Ann Garrison 
The Empire’s Fifth Column in Africa: Morocco Morocco’s newfound interest in Africa is linked to NATO’s attack on Africa and the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. NATO’s destruction of Libya completely humiliated the African Union. It tore the heart out of an alternative African future, and left Africa seriously exposed once again to the Western imperial virus: a virus contemporary Morocco carries. “Morocco’s body may be in Africa but its mind is in the North Atlantic and the Persian Gulf.” by Aidan O’Brien 
Environment:
World:
