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
“To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be; not to fear obstacles; to be true in little things as in big ones; to base one’s program on the logic of the class struggle; to be bold when the hour for action arrives – these are the rules of the Fourth International.” – Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program.
The very ‘cure’ for the last Depression has led to the present crisis. As we enter this crisis, which French Premier François Fillon described as “the edge of the abyss”, there is no New Deal solution for capitalism — it cannot longer afford The New Deal. To paraphrase Leon Trotsky: “The New Deal despite its first period of pretentious resoluteness, represents but a special form of political perplexity, possible only in a country where the bourgeoisie succeeded in accumulating incalculable wealth. The present crisis, far from having run its full course, has already succeeded in showing that New Deal politics, pens no new exit from the economic blind alley. 2009 will be the largest increase in debt in history. While the rich are getting richer, the world’s peoples are getting poorer. To quote from Reflection by Fidel: A Science Fiction Story: “ . . .at the end of 2008 the total debt of the United States –including that of the federal, state and local administrations, the businesses and families—amounted to 57 trillion dollars, that is, over 400% of its GDP, and that country’s budget deficit reached almost 13% of its GDP in fiscal year 2009. . . . The Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, who is not a disciple of Karl Marx but an honest catholic among others who are not willing to cooperate with the imperialism in Latin America, has recently said that ‘‘… we are risking our destruction and the devastation of life’s diversity.’ … almost half of humanity is living today under the poverty line. The wealthiest 20% are consuming 82.49% of all of the riches on Earth while the poorest 20% are living on a tiny 1.6%.’ He also quotes the FAO as he warns that ‘. . . .there will be in the upcoming years from 150 to 200 million climate refugees.” And then he adds that ‘humanity is consuming today a 30% above the regenerating capacity. . . . the planet is giving unmistakable signs that it can stand it no more”. . . . In an International Monetary Fund publication, Finance and Development, Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff tips readers off to this stark reality, which many of them undoubtedly already suspected. Kotlikoff told the Boston Globe and Mail that the United States national debt is not the $13.5 trillion that people around the world believe it is; rather, he estimates it at $200 trillion, or 840% of U.S. Gross Domestic Product. “As Goes the Dollar So Goes the World, November 1, 2010 There is no longer any basis for support to the reformism and its ‘lesser evil’ politics. Worldwide the capitalist class is socializing their debts — transferring their losses to the working class and the poor. Now they are in frenzy in their search for profits and are stripping the working class and the poor any and all assets. This is what happened historically in the Roman Empire on its way to debt bondage and serfdom. The only solution for capitalism, at this time, is the worldwide application of the Iron Heel, as described by Jack London in his book, The Iron Heel. The immediate tasks is to build the international opposition of the working class and the oppressed of the world to this international crisis of debt and overproduction. The petty bourgeois leaderships of the working class and the world’s oppressed have no solution to this final crisis of capitalism. Roland Sheppard, Occupy Wall Street Demonstrates The Need To Build An Organization of All Anti-Capitalist Forces! (2010)
Videos of the Day:
‘Zero Legitimacy’ for New Government in Honduras Independent Filmmaker Jesse Freeston reports from Honduras on how the newly inaugurated President Hernandez lacks all legitimacy in the general population, not only because of the fraud allegations, but also because of the massive corruption scandals his government is covering up
Do You Want to Pay a Toll to Private Investors When You Ride Trump’s Federal Highways? That’s His Infrastructure Pitch $200 billion taken from other programs. Taxpayers borrow $800 billion plus interest. Then come tolls and user fees. As President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address Tuesday, pay close attention to his next big priority—an infrastructure plan—which, over time, could eclipse the trillion-dollar giveaway to the rich in the GOP’s just-passed tax plan. By Steven Rosenfeld
Environment:
Trump Proves Record-Level Ignorance Regarding Ice Caps, Climate Crisis“The president insists that ‘the ice caps are at a record level,’ confirming the suspicion that he’s living on a different planet.”Though ultimately difficult to prove whether it is President Donald Trump’s willful misstatement of facts and reality or just the expression of his outright ignorance and stupidity, scientists and climate experts were forced to gasp at just how little the president appears to understand about the threat of human-caused global warming when he suggested to British interviewer Piers Morgan the polar ice caps were doing great. In the interview that aired Sunday night, in which Morgan asked the president directly about his beliefs on the subject, Trump responded by saying, “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records.” By Jon Queally,
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Study Fills in Missing Data on Homes, Schools, Habitats at Risk from Shell’s Falcon Pipeline At the end of 2017, Shell ran slightly afoul of Pennsylvania state regulators after filing a pipeline permit application to the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that failed to show sensitive environmental areas in the path of its proposed Falcon ethane pipeline. Now, a concerned nonprofit has pieced together the details Shell should have included (and more), revealing hundreds of homes, schools, streams, and wetlands in the path of the fracking products pipeline. The 97-mile Falcon Ethane project will carry more than 107,000 barrels a day of a flammable plastics precursor to a small town in Pennsylvania where Shell is building an ethane “cracker” facility. In a region poised to be transformed by petrochemical development, this huge plastics plant will superheat the ethane and “crack” it as it manufactures over a million tons per year of tiny plastic beads of ethylene or polyethylene. Shell’s pipeline plan lacked maps that would show area creeks, rivers, waterways, and other sensitive areas like wildlife sanctuaries and preserved lands, the state Department of Environmental Protection said after it issued “incompleteness letters” to the plant in October, a local newspaper, The Times Online, reported. By Sharon Kelly
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
The Republican War on Women Continues With Yet Another Bill to Ban Abortion After 20 WeeksWith the possibility of a second government shutdown looming, the U.S. Senate on Monday afternoon focused its attention not on immigration or any other practical budgetary matter, but instead channeled its energy into an effort to curtail the reproductive rights of millions of women. Specifically, the Senate convened on January 29 to consider S.2311, which would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exception, and would threaten prison time for physicians who fail to comply with the law’s myriad requirements. By Jordan Smith
Using Immigrants to Shame America BlacksI wasn’t surprised that some of our leading “thought leaders” didn’t know that Nigerians are among the most highly educated immigrants. I wasn’t. I visited Nigeria in 1999 and met a number of intellectuals, scholars, and writers. Upon my return, I published two anthologies that included 41 Nigerian writers, selected and edited by Nigerian writer Toyin Adewale-Gabriel. Yet during a discussion of President Trump’s describing African countries as “shitholes,” ignoring the fact that some African countries have a higher GDP than the United States, his critics demonstrated that they’d succumbed to the same stereotypes as Trump. One CNN reporter even referred to Africa as a country.by Ishmael Ree
Former “Soledad Brother” Fights for Parole: Students at Southern University Law Center (SULC) have asked the UN Human Rights Commission to intervene in the case of John Clutchette, the former “Soledad Brother” who was charged, along with George Jackson and Fleeta Drumgo, in the death of a prison guard in 1970. Clutchette was acquitted and freed, but later wound up in prison again for murder. The state parole board wants to release the 75 year-old, but California Governor Ed Brown reversed the decision, demanding that Clutchette show remorse for his alleged acts in the Seventies. SULC student Ryan Thompson says Brown “is carrying out a long tradition of repression” in the spirit of COINTELPRO.
Baltimore Cops Worse Than Thirties Gangsters:The Baltimore police officers charged with robbing and planting guns and drugs on citizens are “worse than gangsters back in the Thirties, because it’s the law doing it,” said Carl Dix, co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Community members believe the scandal surrounding the police Gun Trace Task Force is linked to the shooting death of a police sargeant, last year, that resulted in the lockdown and siege of a Black neighborhood. The murdered officer had “helped to get the case going, and then he was mysteriously killed” and the blame was shifted to the community, said Dix, a native of Baltimore.
Beware of Amazon Bearing Corporate Gifts:Greg LeRoy, of Good Jobs First, warns the remaining 20 cities bidding to become Amazon’s second headquarters not to believe the corporation’s promises of $5 billion in investments and 50,000 good-paying jobs. Cites always lose out on these corporate mega-deals, said LeRoy. Some bids would allow Amazon to pocket its employees’ tax payments. “We’re giving away other people’s money, and without the permission or knowledge of the workers in almost every case,” he said.
Labor:
Economy:
Early Reviews of Trump Tax Cut are Not Good: Capital Goods Orders Fall in December The centerpiece of the Republican tax cut was a big reduction in the corporate tax rate, lowering it from 35 percent to 21 percent. While critics argued this was just a handout to shareholders, who are overwhelmingly wealthy, the counter was the tax cut would lead to a surge in growth, which would benefit everyone. The logic is that a lower tax rate provides more incentive to invest. With new investment in plant, equipment, and intellectual products, productivity will rise. Higher productivity will mean higher wages, which is good news for the bulk of the population that works for a living. by Dean Baker
Argentina’s past: Perónism, revolution and counter-revolution In late October, the body of Santiago Maldonado was found floating in the Chubut River in Argentina. This followed the activist’s forced disappearance in August during his involvement in a movement defending the land rights of the Mapuche indigenous people. In a country where enforced disappearances were once commonplace, Maldonado’s death was both a remnant of Argentina’s counter-revolutionary past, and also exposed the corruption, rot and unresolved contradictions that remain at the core of the regime. By Jessica Walker
