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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
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Quotes of the Day:
Oxfam found that 82% of the global wealth produced last year went to the richest 1% of the world’s population. In other words, four out of every five dollars of wealth created in 2017 went into the pockets of the 1%. While a new billionaire was created every other day, the 3.7 billion people making up the poorest half of the world’s population saw no increase in their wealth last year. “The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” said Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of Oxfam. “The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.”Oxfam reported that the 42 richest people now own as much wealth the poorest half of the world’s population.Since 2010, billionaire wealth has risen annually by 13%, a rate six time higher than that of average workers. — The Billionaire Boom: 82% of Global Wealth Produced Last Year Went to Richest 1%
In 1951, member states of the United Nations approved a convention on refugees. The point of that convention was limited – to ensure that refugees from World War II were not treated unjustly. Gradually, the term ‘refugee’ would expand. The West began to use the term to define those who fled the USSR and Eastern Europe, but not those who fled colonial wars from Eastern Africa to South-East Asia. A 1967 Protocol set aside the limitations of space and time, calling for refugees to be defined ‘without any geographic limitation’. Anyone who is displaced, by this logic, is a refugee. There are currently 66 million people who have been forcibly displaced, the bulk of them living in their countries of origin with 22.5 million registered formally as refugees. In 2016, a mere 189,300 refugees were resettled in other countries. The rest sit in camps or are at the edge of the international system. It is well worth pointing out that each day close to 30,000 people are forcibly displaced from their homes. The countries of wealth, the old colonial states, from the United States to Australia, have developed a common plan to deal with the refugee crisis. They are building off-shore camps, outsourcing the refugee problem to states that are willing to be paid to set up barriers for the free movement of people. — Vijay Prashad, The World’s Poorest Citizens Are Being Betrayed by the #1 Organization Designed to Protect Them
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U.S.:
Democrats Have Hijacked the anti-Trump Resistance Leftists want to change the world. They want peace, equal income, equal wealth, equal rights for everybody. Democrats are not part of the Left. If Democrats have their way, the fundamental inequality of American capitalism, a system in which 1% of the people “earn” 82% of the income, will never change. Democrats apply identity politics as a distraction, in lieu of systematic solutions to class-based discrimination. Democrats demand more women directors in Hollywood, more African-Americans admitted to Ivy League schools, transgendered soldiers in the military so they can join the slaughter of brown people in other countries. by Ted Rall
DACA Joins the Mad Rush to War “Measured in military dollars, the Democratic leadership is more warlike than the Trump administration.” The top Democrats in Congress have transformed DACA, the effort to protect 800,000 childhood immigrants from deportation, into a gargantuan funding measure for the Pentagon. This past weekend, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer offered to fully fund Donald Trump’s border wall and boost defense spending “far above” what the White House requested, in a deal to end the government shutdown. The military budget signed into law in December was already $30 billion higher than the White House asked for, and $80 billion bigger than the previous year’s war spending — an increase as large as Russia’s entire defense budget. By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
Trump’s Draft Nuclear Posture Review Degrades National Security On Jan. 11, the Huffington Post posted a leaked draft of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, the government’s most detailed unclassified nuclear weapons and war planning and preparation document, the first since April 2010. by John Laforge 
Environment:
Trump administration could be sued over pesticide threat to orca and salmon Commercial fishermen and environmental groups could file lawsuits against the Trump administration, if it fails to follow a recommendation by one of its own agencies to protect salmon, sturgeon, orca and other endangered species in the Pacific north-west. Fishing industry and environmentalists mull lawsuits. EPA tried to delay report detailing chemicals’ harm to wildlifeThe National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently issued a long-awaited opinion on three organophosphate pesticides – chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion. It did so after a long court fight. Environmental groups sought publication of the opinion while the Trump administration, supported by pesticide manufacturers, pushed for a two-year delay. The 3,700-page federal report was issued on 29 December. The scientists warned that the widely used pesticides pose a threat, through run-off into rivers and oceans, to dozens of endangered and threatened species. By Joanna Walters 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Following the Lead of Donald Trump, and of the 1% Major League Owners, Sports Writers Continue to Support the Illegal Blackballing of Barry Bonds from the Hall of Fame:
Tuesday marked the 10th anniversary of Barry Bonds’ 762nd home run, the last he would hit in his career. In a tribute last month celebrating his passing of Hank Aaron’s 755 career home runs, Bonds reflected: “I should have played one more year, I should have had the chance to,” Bonds said. “It’s all right, though. Those 22 (years) were still good. I wish I could have gotten to retire better” He was being polite. After his 2007 season, Barry Lamar Bonds was blackballed by Major League Baseball. We need to state this truth without qualification. Lack of legal validation has never stopped sports writers from printing that Bonds used Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), so why do we play dumb on behalf of owners? Any other conclusion is dishonest. — Barry Bonds was blackballed 10 years before Colin Kaepernick and the excuses were the same
Yes, the 43-year-old’s fielding has become painful to watch in recent years, as the seven-time Gold Glover limped around the outfield on knees without cartilage. But in 2007, Bonds still hit 28 home runs in 340 at-bats, led the National League in walks and had an on-base percentage of .480. Since 1950, only Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Norm Cash and Bonds in years past recorded higher on-base percentages. Maybe Bonds can’t field, but there are at least a dozen American League teams that could use a designated hitter capable of a .480 on-base percentage, not to mention a player who could sell out a ballpark. One would think that the sports media would be asking questions about Bonds’ inability to land a new contract. Instead, some commentators act like willing accomplices to the airbrushing of Bonds from baseball history. For instance, Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy columnist for ESPN.com, wrote last month: “Opening Day came and went without Bonds for the first time in 22 years, and nobody seemed to notice. I didn’t think about him for more than two seconds all spring. Did anyone? Can you remember being a part of a single ‘I wonder where Bonds is going to end up?’ conversation? … The best hitter since Ted Williams is gone and forgotten. We wanted him to go away, and he did.” — Yes, the 43-year-old’s fielding has become painful to watch in recent years, as the seven-time Gold Glover limped around the outfield on knees without cartilage. But in 2007, Bonds still hit 28 home runs in 340 at-bats, led the National League in walks and had an on-base percentage of .480. Since 1950, only Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Norm Cash and Bonds in years past recorded higher on-base percentages. Maybe Bonds can’t field, but there are at least a dozen American League teams that could use a designated hitter capable of a .480 on-base percentage, not to mention a player who could sell out a ballpark.One would think that the sports media would be asking questions about Bonds’ inability to land a new contract. Instead, some commentators act like willing accomplices to the airbrushing of Bonds from baseball history. For instance, Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy columnist for ESPN.com, wrote last month: “Opening Day came and went without Bonds for the first time in 22 years, and nobody seemed to notice. I didn’t think about him for more than two seconds all spring. Did anyone? Can you remember being a part of a single ‘I wonder where Bonds is going to end up?’ conversation? … The best hitter since Ted Williams is gone and forgotten. We wanted him to go away, and he did.” — Erasing Barry Bonds from baseball history
Never mind all of that. The greatest case for reasonable doubt lies in Bonds’ very late career success. His unparalleled middle-aged majesty screams his innocence. Steroids and rapid “unnatural” muscle growth puts tremendous pressure on the joints and tendons. Admitted steroid users like former MVPS Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco, Lenny Dykstra and banned substance user Mark McGwire all saw their bodies break down as they hit their mid 30s. In the end, they limped away from their careers and were put down like Seabiscuit in Elmer’s Glue Land. Bonds has thrived as he hurtles toward 40, not unlike Jerry Rice, Bret Favre, Reggie Miller, and Randy Johnson. To go by the rumors that surround him, Bonds’ ankles should be snapping like toothpicks every time he jogs to first base. But the media has been crushing Bonds without evidence because he has never played their game. If Jordan was the Tom Hanks of the NBA, Bonds is Sean Penn, beating down the paparazzi and challenging perceptions of greatness against our will. To some, this is his greatest sin: not the power numbers, but that they threaten the place in history of the immortal Babe Ruth. I heard one sports radio chatterbox remark, “Even if Bonds isn’t on steroids he is a freak, with his trainers, and supplements, and work out regimens. The Babe would drink a keg, eat a steak, and hit three home runs, Let’s see Bonds do that.” Therefore Bonds’ very commitment to not being the oozing glutton that was Ruth is a knock against him. This is also revisionist history. Ruth was known to have all kinds of 1920s home remedies injected in his system for increased potency (I assume in the field). Ruth has also never been tagged with an asterisk despite the fact he never had to play against competition with black skin, or travel farther than the Mississippi to play. I would love to have seen Ruth face Satchel Paige in a sweltering San Juan double header. Bonds has produced in an era of the global talent pool, cross-country travel, and intense media scrutiny. But none of this will prepare him for the glaring intensity in his face this year. Whether the anti-steroid furies are motivated to “protect the game”, crush the players union, or target Bonds – the fact remains: muscle enhancers cannot slam a 95 mph slider into McCovey Cove. Barry Bonds can – and Ashcroft, Selig, and Bush can kiss his asterisk. — David Zirin
Tuesday marked the 10th anniversary of Barry Bonds’ 762nd home run, the last he would hit in his career. In a tribute last month celebrating his passing of Hank Aaron’s 755 career home runs, Bonds reflected: “I should have played one more year, I should have had the chance to,” Bonds said. “It’s all right, though. Those 22 (years) were still good. I wish I could have gotten to retire better” He was being polite. After his 2007 season, Barry Lamar Bonds was blackballed by Major League Baseball. We need to state this truth without qualification. Lack of legal validation has never stopped sports writers from printing that Bonds used Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), so why do we play dumb on behalf of owners? Any other conclusion is dishonest. — Barry Bonds was blackballed 10 years before Colin Kaepernick and the excuses were the same
I’ve had enough of white people who try to deny my experience “The world is wrong,” wrote the American poet Claudia Rankine. “You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard.” To be black, in a society that invented race for the specific purpose of dehumanising people who are black, and then invented an equally formidable system of denial, is to carry the burden of history that others would rather forget. I found myself having to explain this reality last week, on the Sky News show The Pledge, in what I had hoped would be a debate about the utility of Trump’s “shithole countries” remark, and the racism of Jo Marney, girlfriend of the Ukip leader. Remarkably, given the premise, the argument became a race to the bottom. “Does racism exist any more?” my white co-panellists wanted to know. They thought not. By Afua Hirsch
“Show Me Your Papers!” Roundups, Checkpoints and National ID Card No one is safe. No one is immune. No one gets spared the anguish, fear and heartache of living under the shadow of an authoritarian police state. That’s the message being broadcast 24/7 to the citizens and residents of the American police state with every new piece of government propaganda, every new law that criminalizes otherwise lawful activity, every new policeman on the beat, every new surveillance camera casting a watchful eye, every sensationalist news story that titillates and distracts, every new prison or detention center built to house troublemakers and other undesirables, every new court ruling that gives government agents a green light to strip and steal and rape and ravage the citizenry, every school that opts to indoctrinate rather than educate, and every new justification for why Americans should comply with the government’s attempts to trample the Constitution underfoot. by John W. Whitehead 
Labor:
Did U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Give Dollar Shorts a Wink in Davos? U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin opened his mouth at the base of the snow-covered mountains of Davos, Switzerland yesterday during the World Economic Forum and sent an instant chill through currency markets around the world. After Mnuchin made the highly inappropriate remark that a weak dollar would be good for U.S. trade prospects, the U.S. Dollar plunged to a three-year low. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
National and Class Struggle in Quebec Quebec is an oppressed nation within the Canadian state. While the national liberation struggle in the 1960s and 70s went a long way in liberating the Québécois from oppression, things like the so-called Clarity Act are the most clear example that this oppression still exists to this day. For Marxists, it is our duty to fight against all manifestations of oppression in order to unite the working class. Conversely, for the capitalists, the maintenance of their system, their wealth and their power and privilege is contingent on using all means possible to divide the working class. By Joel Bergman 
Seven in 10 UK workers are ‘chronically broke’ Study finds Economic insecurity has become the “new normal” in the UK with at least 70% of the UK’s working population “chronically broke”, according to a study by the thinktank the Royal Society of Arts. Thriving, striving or just about surviving, the RSA/Populus survey of more than 2,000 workers, found that while about 30% of respondents said they lived comfortably, 40% said their finances were permanently precarious. The remaining 30% said they were not managing to get by.
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