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 Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico
If reconciled and signed by Trump, this legislation will leave tens of millions of people beaten, baffled and bereft. With this bill, they establish a permanent inheritor class whose wealth will be so vast and untouchable that they can buy every election — local, state and federal — from here on out. This is not simply a tax bill: It is the last stage of a corporate coup that has been slow-walking its intentions for decades. With this legislation, they’re stomping on the gas:
* The overwhelming majority of the tax cuts are given to the wealthy and to corporations. The rest of us get a tax increase a few years from now to pay for this gift to the rich.
* Medicare will be slashed by $250 billion over 10 years, again to pay for the vast sums being sent up the ladder.
* This bill gives more than $500 billion to foreign investors over the next ten years, clearly making America great again in the process. Know any poor or middle-class folks who could use half a trillion dollars right here at home?
* The bill is also an attack on education: College loan deductions are eliminated, and deductions for teachers who have to buy their own school supplies are gone.
* On Thursday, the Koch network warned the Senate not to add an amendment that would help poor families eat, if doing so increased corporate taxes in any way.
* The individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is eliminated, which basically means the ACA itself is eliminated, depriving millions of affordable health insurance. People will die because of this one — you can count on it.
* Churches have been barred from endorsing candidates and getting directly involved in politics since 1954. The House version of this tax bill would eliminate that restriction, which is already widely ignored by a number of highly political churches and religious organizations. This provision opens a huge campaign finance loophole for the GOP. Can’t give any more to a candidate? Give to some right-wing megachurches with audiences in the tens of thousands and have them endorse your candidate. Praise the Lord and pass the plate.
* Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was one of the crew that defected during the ACA repeal tussle earlier this year. She has decided, this time around, that destroying the ACA and gutting Medicare are fine with her because in return, the oil and mining industries get to ravage the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, just like they’ve always wanted. — Calamity Now: Senate to Pass Monstrous Tax Cut Bill
Thanksgiving at Angkor Royal Cafe”, a flier read. And: “23rd November… Join us for a traditional Thanksgiving Feast”. This was at one of the international hotels in Siem Reap, a Cambodian city near the world architectural treasures of Angkor Wat and the ancient Khmer capital, Angkor Thom. The same day I read an email sent to me from the United States, by my Native American friends, with a link to an essay published by MPN News, called “Thanksgiving Guide: How to Celebrate a Sordid History”. It began with a summary: “While millions of Americans prepare this week to get into the holiday spirit, beginning with Thanksgiving, how many are prepared to view the day through an accurate lens? While to many Americans the holiday serves as a reminder to give thanks, it is seen as a day of mourning by countless of others. The truth is: European migrants brutally murdered Native Americans, stole their land, and continue to do so today”. The day became an official day of festivities in 1637, to celebrate the massacre of over 700 people from the Pequot Tribe. — Genocidal United States
Videos of the Day:
Protests Erupt as Honduras Presidential Election Results Reversed The country’s electoral authority reversed the initial presidential election results, now giving the conservative incumbent a lead in the vote count. Tensions are mounting as protesters clash with the police. Heather Gies reports from Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Mitch McConnell Just Admitted That No One Is Allowed To Read The Tax Cut Bill Until After It Passes What McConnell is doing is blowing up the legislative process undermining the Consitution. The elected representatives of the people can’t represent the interests of their constituents if they aren’t allowed to read legislation before voting on it. Mitch McConnell is committing a crime against democracy. Citizens can’t read the bill for themselves because it hasn’t been publicly released. Senators don’t have adequate time to review the legislation because it has not been provided to them. By Jason Easley
Big Brother is Knocking on the Door: Trial and Terror Part 7: By withholding evidence of warrantless spying, the government avoided a court challenge to controversial mass surveillance — which is now before Congress. — NSA Secretly Helped Convict Defendants in U.S. Courts, Classified Documents Reveal Kazliddin Kurbanov is a barrel-chested man from Uzbekistan who came to the United States in 2009, when he was in his late 20s. A Christian who had converted from Islam, Kurbanov arrived as a refugee and spoke little English. Resettled in Boise, Idaho, he rented an apartment, worked odd jobs, and was studying to be a truck driver.But about three years after entering the U.S., around the time he converted back to Islam, Kurbanov was placed under FBI surveillance. According to emails and internet chat logs obtained by the government, Kurbanov was disgusted by having seen Americans burn the Quran and by reports that an American soldier had tried to rape a Muslim girl. “My entire life, everything, changed,” Kurbanov wrote in a July 31, 2012 email. By Trevor Aaronson
Environment:
Florida Everglades the Most Endangered Site In the U.S., Report Says Florida’s Everglades National Park remains the most endangered natural world heritage site in the United States, a new report says. According to a World Heritage Outlook released last month by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the outlook for the Everglades is “critical” and is the only site of 11 sites assessed in the United States to be designated as such. The site keeps the same critical designation that it received the last time IUCN assessed the sites in 2014. By Pam Wright
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Labor:
It is easy to imagine with what a condescending perplexity the official socialist thinking of that time met Jack London’s menacing prophecies. If one took the trouble to look over the reviews of The Iron Heel at that time in the German Neue Zeit and Vorwärts, in the Austrian Kampf and Arbeiterzeitung, as well as in the other socialist publications of Europe and America, he could easily convince himself that the thirty-year-old “romanticist” saw incomparably more clearly and farther than all the social-democratic leaders of that time taken together. But Jack London bears comparison in this domain not only with the reformists. One can say with assurance that in 1907 not one of the revolutionary Marxists, not excluding Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, imagined so fully the ominous perspective of the alliance between finance capital and labor aristocracy. This suffices in itself to determine the specific weight of the novel. — Trotsky and the Iron Heel
Economy:
Tax Plan Deceptions Come Under Scrutiny by Inspector General The idea that cutting the taxes of corporations (which use their profits to buy back their own shares in order to artificially inflate share prices) and millionaires/billionaires (who own the vast majority of stocks that benefit from this share price inflation) will somehow trickle down to the real economy and the average Joe is simply another grand illusion from the Trump team. Yesterday, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released its analysis of just how much more debt the U.S. will be taking on if the Senate Tax Plan passes. The study found that economic growth would trim only $458 billion of the tax plan’s cost over the next decade while adding an additional $1 trillion to the national debt. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
The UN passed six new resolutions against the Jewish state, including one denying Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem 151-6. The United Nations General Assembly in New York passed six resolutions on Thursday affirming Palestinian rights and condemning Israeli violations of international law, Middle East Monitor reported. According to one resolution (‘Jerusalem’), “the Assembly reiterated that any actions by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem were illegal and therefore null and void.”
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Russia: How the Bureaucracy Seized Power — Part one: The Russian working-class takes power The October Revolution Petrograd, capital of Russia, on the night of October 25, 1917. With the First World War raging on the battlefields of Europe, the Russian Revolution has reached its deciding moment. Armed detachments of workers and soldiers, organized by the Bolshevik Party, have taken control in the city. The pro-capitalist Provisional Government, discredited and isolated, has ceased to exist. . . . Some delegates are professional politicians, left-wing intellectuals or radicalized army officers. But the vast majority are representatives of the ordinary working people: “great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy workmen, peasants ‒ poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle for existence” (John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World) ‒ but filled with a revolutionary vision of the future, and a passionate determination to end their oppression once and for all. By George Collins
Petrograd Soviet Assembly in 1917 / Image: fair use
When Injustice Becomes Law — Resistance Becomes Duty 
