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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 1% Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico
February is Black History Month
Images of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
The police continue to use extra legal means to subjugate the Black Community, as Malcolm X stated in speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964): “The community must reinforce its moral responsibility to rid itself of the effects of years of exploitation, neglect, and apathy, and wage an unrelenting struggle against police brutality.” Yes. There are some good policemen and some bad policemen. Usually we get the bad ones. With all the police in Harlem, there is too much crime, too much drug addiction, too much alcoholism, too much prostitution, too much gambling. So it makes us suspicious about the motives of Commissioner Murphy when he sends all these policemen up here. We begin to think that they are just his errand boys, whose job it is to pick up the graft and take it back downtown to Murphy. Anytime there’s a police commissioner who finds it necessary to increase the strength numerically of the policemen in Harlem and, at the same time, we don’t see any sign of a decrease in crime, why, I think we’re justified in suspecting his motives. He can’t be sending them up here to fight crime, because crime is on the increase. The more cops we have, the more crime we have. We begin to think that they bring some of the crime with them. So our purpose is to organize the community so that we ourselves since the police can’t eliminate the drug traffic, we have to eliminate it. Since the police can’t eliminate organized gambling, we have to eliminate it. Since the police can’t eliminate organized prostitution and all of these evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community, it is up to you and me to eliminate these evils ourselves. But in many instances, when you unite in this country or in this city to fight organized crime, you’ll find yourselves fighting the police department itself because they are involved in the organized crime. Wherever you have organized crime, that type of crime cannot exist other than with the consent of the police, the knowledge of the police and the cooperation of the police.”
Massacres, tortures and assassinations of Blacks have continued unabated. These acts of terrorism have been carried throughout this nation by the police, the government under the rule of both the Democratic and Republican parties, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, the ‘76 Association etc..” — The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the Black Community and African American Oppression
On the Sunday before he was murdered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, that magnificent edifice where America officially mourns its great following their passing. On that Sunday the nation had no way of knowing that it soon would mourn King. His sermon that morning was The Drum Major speech, one of the great moral lessons in American oratory. In it, King uses a Biblical story to explain our innate need for attention, the “drum major instinct,” he called it. He decried our desire for attention, almost at any cost. Early in the sermon he says, “Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers, you know those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion, and they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying.” One of the lines in the speech says, “Did you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income.” A new Ram pickup truck costs upward of thirty thousand dollars. Why mention the Ram truck? The company used recordings of that very speech to try to sell us its trucks during the Super Bowl in one of the foulest, most disgusting advertising pitches in the history of television, and that’s an area with stiff competition. The ad, which cost more than five million dollars to air, ignored the first part of King’s speech and used the part where he admonished us to serve. “If you want to be important, wonderful”… “He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” Cut to a video of a truck. What an obscene, disgusting display of crass commercialism! Selling trucks few people can afford by twisting one of the great speeches in American history, by ignoring its core message, and attempting to brand a truck with one of the world’s great moral teachers. — Dr. King and Trucks
Videos of the Day:
Ram Truck’s Super Bowl Ad Drives Over MLK’s Legacy Dr. Gerald Horne discusses a controversial Super Bowl ad which used King’s famous “Drum Major” speech to sell Dodge Ram pickup trucks, which seemed exceedingly tone-deaf given King’s fierce opposition to capitalism and consumerism
U.S.:
Poverty American Style “The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion.” In December last year, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, issued a statement on his 15-day fact-finding mission of some of the US’s poorest neighbourhoods. Alston, author of the quoted phrase in the subtitle above, is an Australian who is professor of law at New York University. During his mission he visited Alabama, California, West Virginia, Texas, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico. By Kenneth Surin 
The Democratic Party, the ‘Peace Party’, supported the War of the Confederacy— Nat the United States During the Civil War, and it has supported every Imperialist War since World War I.: 60% Of House Democrats Vote For A Defense Budget Even Bigger Than Trump’s By Erik Sherman
Environment:
Trump Declares Solar War Syria Installs Solar In stark contrast to Trump’s draconian efforts to kill renewable energy, Syria has a brighter approach. Six months ago, Syria opened its first solar-powered hospital. By adopting solar power and skirting use of fossil fuels, which are the lifeblood of Middle Eastern economies, Syria makes the United States look backwards and nonsensical, kinda like a Mad Hatter with cockamamie hard to decipher rhetoric. Syria plans to open five more solar-powered hospitals with funding from foundations, government agencies, and philanthropists. by Robert Hunziker
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
China Is Financing a Petrochemical Hub in Appalachia. Meet its Powerful Backers.Over the past year, oil and gas industry plans to build a petrochemical refining and storage hub along the Ohio River have steadily gained traction. Proponents hope this potential hub, which would straddle Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, could someday rival the industrial corridor (Cancer Alley R.S)…found along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. At that trade mission, also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the China Energy Investment Corp. announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to invest $83.7 billion into the planned storage hub over 20 years. For comparison, West Virginia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 was $72.9 billion. By Steve Horn 
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Child Who Killed Pedophile To Escape Sex Trafficking Ring Gets Life In Prison A child from Nashville, who was kidnapped and forced into child sex slavery by a pedophile ring, has been sentenced to life in prison for murder by a judge after she was forced to shoot a rapist before escaping from the human trafficking network.16-year-old Cyntoia Brown was arrested by police for the murder of a 42-year-old pedophile and tried in court as an adult, where she was jailed for life. Cyntoia Brown got life in prison after she was forced to shoot a pedophile to escape sex slavery
NYT Joins Campaign to Purge the Term, “White Monopoly Capital” in South Africa “The Times fingered a British p.r. outfit as the culprit that popularized the belief that ‘white monopoly capital’ must be overthrown to complete the unfinished South African revolution.” The New York Times, the world’s premier journalistic purveyor of a “fake,” imperial, and profoundly white capitalist world view — masquerading as all the news that’s fit to print — wants us to believe that a now-bankrupt London-based public relations firm is behind South Africa’s regime-shaking debate over the rule of “white monopoly capital.” By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor 
Labor:
Economy:
Did Wall Street Get Hacked, Back Away or Just Get Overwhelmed on Monday?The U.S. Senate Banking Committee needs to get its act together and immediately schedule hearings on the trading outages that occurred at numerous discount brokers and mutual funds on Monday. According to thousands of on-line complaints, customers of major firms like TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, Vanguard, and T. Rowe Price could not access their accounts using the firms’ websites on Monday and thus could not place sell or buy orders as the market dove 1,597 points in mid afternoon, then partially recovered to close down 1,175 points.At online outage tracker, downdetector.com, both TD Ameritrade and Fidelity were verbally brutalized by outraged customers, many of whom said they had lost thousands of dollars as a result of the outage. Others commenters were stirring up momentum for a class action lawsuit. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Flash Crashes: Small Investors Are Being Crushed by Wall Street On Monday afternoon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading down about 700 points. Over the next 11 minutes, it fell more than 800 points in what can only be described as a Flash Crash as the Dow abruptly recovered to pare its loss from down 1,597 points to a final close of down 1,175 points on the day. Small investors who had stop-loss orders in place saw those orders triggered and their stocks sold, only to see their stocks recover much of those losses within minutes. This was eerily reminiscent of the Flash Crashes on May 6, 2010 and August 24, 2015. Small investors (as well as institutional investors like municipal pension funds who work for the little guy) frequently have in place standing stop-loss orders that sit on the stock exchange order books to sell a stock at a pre-determined exit price that is lower than the current market. This is meant to “stop” further losses. Once the target price of the stop-loss order is reached, the order automatically becomes a market order and is executed at where the market happens to be. In orderly markets, this would typically mean the stop-loss order would be executed at, or close to, the designated target price. In flash-crash markets, on the other hand, it’s an open invitation to be fleeced. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Zuma’s endgame plunges South Africa into political limbo Extraordinary events over the last few days, surrounding the fate of Jacob Zuma, have plunged the ANC – and the country – into a deep crisis. Zuma’s scandal-plagued presidency is clearly untenable for the Ramaphosa faction, which marginally controls the ANC. Moreover, Zuma’s continued presence is destabilising the whole political situation and could damage the ANC’s electoral prospects in 2019. Big business is desperate to dig itself out of a hole. The problem for them is that the balance of forces between the two fighting ANC factions is very even, as we saw at the national conference in December. Now the crisis in the party has put the whole country in political limbo. By Ben Morken
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
