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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
Images of the Day:
Quotes of The Day:
What is the safety record of US trains? Dreadful by Western standards. The railways of Britain carry as many passengers in a week as Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, does in a year. Besides the long-distance operator, there are many local operators, but train usage is still low. Yet the US rail network sees far more accidents than European railways. In the UK there have been no fatal accidents in the past 10 years. In the US, there have been 10, with dozens of passengers losing their lives. — Amtrak train derailment: What happened, and why are rail tragedies common in the US?
Every man who’s ever grabbed, groped, felt, fondled, pushed, pulled, patted or rubbed a woman’s body part without her permission and gotten away with it should be sweating bullets. Almost daily there are announcements about powerful men being knocked off their proverbial thrones by accusations of sexual crimes. There may be some who think the snow-balling effect of women exposing the sexual aggression of men in the workplace is an overkill. I would say it’s more like a volcano erupting. The boundless incidents of sexual harassment and assaults over the years have formed numerous layers of human pain and suffering. The layers have produced so much pressure that the volcano is now erupting. While much of the spotlight is on the entertainment industry and political arena, this offensive patriarchal behavior is not relegated to high rollers like Harvey Weinstein or Russell Simmons. Keep coming down the ladder and you’ll get to the academic and banking fields. Keep going and you uncover the sexist offenses in the fast food and health industries where you find low-wage working women. Keep going and you run into the likes of Uncle Willie or another trusted male family member. In the African American community, the silent nature of sexual violence is real. The stats are alarming yet Black women — even mothers of child victims — are less likely to report incidents than white women. Legitimate distrust of the system and fears of betrayal mute the voices of victims but not the trauma. Sexual violence is so ingrained in our society that we often have a hard time acknowledging that any wrongdoing has occurred. If a victim so much as thinks about calling out a perpetrator, she often faces retaliation, isolation and rejection. You gotta be one strong, courageous sistah to step out and name your violator. Jamala Rogers, Turning Me Too into We Too
THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND
(Dave Van Ronk?)
This land is their land, it is not our land
From their rich apartments to their Cadillac carland
From their Wall Street office to their Hollywood Starland
This land is not for you and me.
As I was walking that endless breadline
My landlord gave me a one-week deadline
And “Labor Action” ran a better headline
This land is not for you and me.
So take your slogan and kindly stow it
If this was our land you’d never know it
Let’s join together and overthrow it
This land is not for you and me.
(From the “Bosses’Songbook”, circa 1964
This is not recorded anywhere that I know of, but we
sing it regularly at Dornan’s Bar in Moose, Wyoming, where
we have an excess of “Cadillac-carland” types. ABB)
Videos of the Day:
Marikana Massacre Hangs Over South Africa’s New Extremely Rich ANC Leader After a tight race that exposed stark divisions within the party, the African National Congress elected Cyril Ramaphosa, an anti-apartheid crusader, business tycoon, and key suspect in the 2012 Marikana Massacre is positioned to be the country’s next president. But will he root out corruption, or is he part of the problem?
U.S.:
The Permanent Lie, Our Deadliest Threat The most ominous danger we face does not come from the eradication of free speech through the obliteration of net neutrality or through Google algorithms that steer people away from dissident, left-wing, progressive or anti-war sites. It does not come from a tax bill that abandons all pretense of fiscal responsibility to enrich corporations and oligarchs and prepares the way to dismantle programs such as Social Security. It does not come from the opening of public land to the mining and fossil fuel industry, the acceleration of ecocide by demolishing environmental regulations, or the destruction of public education. It does not come from the squandering of federal dollars on a bloated military as the country collapses or the use of the systems of domestic security to criminalize dissent. The most ominous danger we face comes from the marginalization and destruction of institutions, including the courts, academia, legislative bodies, cultural organizations and the press, that once ensured that civil discourse was rooted in reality and fact, helped us distinguish lies from truth and facilitated justice. By Chris Hedges
CEOs Aren’t Waiting for the Tax Bill to Pass — They’ve Already Started Pocketing the Windfall U.S. corporations are already beginning the process of pocketing the winnings from the tax bill jackpot they expect to hit any day now, undercutting, in a remarkably public fashion, the pretense that the corporate tax cut will lead to greater investment in job creation. By David Dayen
Environment:
National parks — This Land is Your Land: Patagonia files claim against Trump over removing Bears Ears protections The company says Donald Trump is exceeding the powers of his office by enacting the largest removal of protection from federal lands in history By Tom McCarthy
Ring of Fire Southern California’s Thomas Fire, the state’s fourth largest, continues to grow. To date, it has consumed over 250,000 acres but in the middle of its burn area, which stretches from Santa Paula in the south east to Santa Barbara in the north west, the Ojai Valley (barring an extraordinary turn-of events), has survived. A week ago, the local weekly, The Ojai Valley News, emblazoned its front page with the banner headline, “Ring of Fire”, a phrase that had been in local circulation for several days previously as residents watched the flames encircle their communities on their seemingly inevitable way to the coast. by John Davis
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Mumia Gets, and Gives, literary Praise Supporters of the nation’s best known political prisoner filled Harlem’s “Raw Space” to celebrate his life and latest book, Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? The event featured Mumia Abu Jamal’s “favorite things,” his favorite colors, drinks and snacks, said historian Robyn Spencer, of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. In an essay for Prison Radio, Abu Jamal gave high praise to Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for her book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. “Her critique of Black politicians shows they differ little from their white predecessors, except for their color,” he said. By Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Black Voters Energized to Fight Raw Racism It took the likes of Alabama’s Roy Moore to bring Blacks to the polls in decisive numbers. “It’s hard to mobilize against “polite racism,” said Kevin Alexander Gray, the veteran activist and author from Columbia, South Carolina. Since the rise of the Clintons, southern Blacks have had to fight corporatist Democrats as well as Republicans. That may be changing under Trump. “I think that white supremacy, and the raw face of white supremacy, is a mobilizer, said Gray. By Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
FCC “Corruption” Gutted Internet Neutrality The media advocacy group Free Press will go to court to reverse the FCC’s gutting of internet neutrality protections, said spokesperson Tim Karr. “This is a very corrupt process,” said Karr. “It involves individuals who are captured by industry.” Victor Pickard, a professor at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees. Over the past ten months, he said, the FCC commissioners “basically have satisfied a long-standing wish list for the telecommunications and broadcast industries.” By Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford 
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Editorial: The Guardian view on the 1%: democracy or oligarchy? Concentrating too much wealth in the hands of the few will ultimately spell the end of government by the many What happens to society where economic power is becoming concentrated in the hands of the few? The present might provide an unsettling answer. A tiny global elite is experiencing a great flourishing; the masses below them are, at varying rates, being left behind. Last week the landmark World Inequality Report, a data-rich project maintained by more than 100 researchers in more than 70 countries, found that the richest 1% reaped 27% of the world’s income between 1980 and 2016. The bottom half of humanity, by contrast, got 12%.
Catalonia goes to the polls amidst repression The Catalan elections of 21 December take place in exceptional conditions of repression and limitation of democratic rights. The elections have become a battleground to legitimise (or not) a coup by the 1978 regime, in which article 155 of the Spanish constitution was used to dismiss the Catalan government and disband the Catalan parliament. With two days to go, the result of the elections is hard to predict. By Jorge Martin
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
