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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
Image of the Day:
Piggies By George Harrison
Have you seen the little piggies
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their styes with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon!
FT president Randi Weingarten warned the Supreme Court that overturning the agency fees would “lead to more activism and political action” like what happened in West Virginia. “Collective bargaining exists as a way for workers and employers to peacefully solve labour relations,” said Weingarten, whose annual salary is $500,000. She warned that “the activism [seen in West Virginia] will be multiplied and magnified across the country if collective bargaining is struck down”. Leaving aside the conflation of agency fees and collective bargaining, the key thing to note is Weingarten’s view that unions are crucial to limiting the growth of militant class struggle. She was elaborating on statements made by a union lawyer to the Supreme Court: “Union security is the trade off for no strikes.” Another lesson is the importance of workers’ democracy in mobilising workers’ power. The importance of championing the interests of other workers is another. The US labour movement needs to be rebuilt on a class struggle basis. That cannot be done from the corrupt union tops. It will only come from the bottom-up, through the kinds of rank-and-file organising carried out by the West Virginia teachers, with democratic decision making that places reliance on the strength of the workers themselves. This rebuilding will take time. There will be victories and defeats in the course of many struggles. The anti-worker offensive carried out for decades by the ruling capitalist class and its two parties will impel new battles. In these struggles, new leaders will emerge, as in West Virginia, and either the old unions will be transformed or new ones built. Both developments took place in the US’s great labour upsurge of the 1930s. Barry Sheppard, Victorious West Virginia teachers’ strike shows way forward
It is claimed the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury was committed with a nerve gas known as novichok, belonging to a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. Moscow asked to see samples of the offending substance so that this claim can be tested. This would seem to be a fairly reasonable request, but it was met with a flat refusal. The grounds for the refusal were rather peculiar: since Russia has been accused of committing this crime, it should not have access to the evidence against it. What does this mean? It means that everyone must accept that accusation is true solely on the grounds that the allegation has been made by the security services whose word, it would seem, cannot be questioned. Everything therefore boils down to whether we trust the word of anonymous and invisible intelligence agents. — Britain: “The mouse that roared” – May picks a fight with Russia
Videos of the Day:
Corbyn Smeared as ‘Russian Stooge’ for Requesting Evidence on Poisoned Spy While harshly condemning the Salisbury nerve agent attack, the Labour Party’s leftist leader requested evidence that the Russian government carried it out. A deluge of smears followed.
Corbyn Calls for Evidence in Escalating Poison Row
For requesting evidence of Russian culpability in the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has been denounced by PM Theresa May and even members of his own party. We discuss the case with Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at New York University and Princeton
Senate Expands ‘Lobbyist Bill’ to Deregulate Real Estate New measures added to the financial deregulation bill include the deregulation of commercial real estate, which threatens to re-create the conditions that led to the 2008 financial crisis, says Bill Black
U.S.:
The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq The American public must come to terms with the scale of the violence and chaos we have unleashed. The U.S. military has refused to keep a tally of Iraqi deaths. General Tommy Franks, the man in charge of the initial invasion, bluntly told reporters, “We don’t do body counts.” One survey found that most Americans thought Iraqi deaths were in the tens of thousands. But our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion. The number of Iraqi casualties is not just a historical dispute, because the killing is still going on today. Since several major cities in Iraq and Syria fell to Islamic State in 2014, the U.S. has led the heaviest bombing campaign since the American War in Vietnam, dropping 105,000 bombs and missiles and reducing most of Mosul and other contested Iraqi and Syrian cities to rubble. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
Terrorism in Texas: Package Bombs Are Killing People in Texas but Donald Trump Hasn’t Said a Thing. There’s a Reason for That. I’ve written this story before — many times, in fact. It’s a story of white privilege and black pain. It’s a story of Islamophobia and bigotry. It’s a story about the United States of merica. On Monday, bombs went off in Austin, Texas. That’s a big deal, right? Bombs — actual improvised explosive devices — going off in the middle of a major American city is a big fucking deal. They weren’t found by a bomb squad and safely disposed of by a brave crew or a high-tech robot. Nah, they were left on the doorsteps of people’s homes all over Austin. Made to look like mail, the packages were then picked up by a mix of everyday people – black and Latino, young and old – who were then torn to bits by explosive shrapnel. By Shaun King 
Environment:
Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle of capitalism. It requires a society where humanity has social, economic, and political control over the entire environment. Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and other species for profit. With common ownership of the means of production, and common control and protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be in harmony with the ecosystem and humanity’s future. With these goals we can begin to build a more effective environmental movement. As we continue to organize against capitalism and its destructive course, we can and will transform the world. In the words of Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist: Never doubt that a “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Roland Sheppard, Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism (1999)
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Drenched in Crude: It’s an Oil Free For All, But That’s Not a New Thing For decades our public lands have been exploited by oil and gas companies and the price these greedy developers are paying for the right to drill continues to plunge. A recent analysis by Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reveals that since 1983, the per acre price for oil drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico dropped by nearly 96% — from over $9,000 to a meager $391. POGO notes that this precipitous decline has saved Big Oil billions of dollars in their Gulf of Mexico leases alone.by Joshua Frank
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Another Prison Industrial Comple Profits From Immigrant Slave Labor: Big Money As Private Immigrant Jails Boom The Trump administration wants to expand its network of immigrant jails. In recent months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has called for five new detention facilities to be built and operated by private prison corporations across the country. Critics are alarmed at the rising fortunes of an industry that had fallen out of favor with the previous administration. By John Burnett
Labor:
Labor’s ‘Race to the Bottom’:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Corrected” Real Retail Sales Level, Indexed to January 2000 = 100
World:
Britain: “The mouse that roared” – May picks a fight with Russia There is an old film starring Peter Sellers called The Mouse that Roared that describes a comical situation in which a tiny, insignificant, European nation declares war on the United States in order to obtain aid. By a peculiar twist of circumstances, they win. The scenario of this amusing production was strikingly brought to mind by the events of the last few days in Britain. By Alan Woods
The Assassination of Human Rights Activist Marielle Franco Was a Huge Loss for Brazil — and the World On Wednesday, in the middle of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a massively important civil rights leader was shot and killed in a brutal drive-by assassination. Her name was Marielle Franco. Like me, Marielle was just 38 years old. We don’t yet know who murdered Marielle and her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, though early indications are that the police might have been involved. Investigators reportedly determined that the bullet casings found at the crime scene had been purchased by the Federal Police in 2006. Bullets from the same lot were used in a series of brutal attacks that killed at least 17 and wounded seven in São Paulo on one night in 2015. Two police officers and one municipal guard were convicted for the massacre. By Shaun King] 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917: the memoirs of Fyodor Raskolnikov Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov was a key Bolshevik activist and a principal organiser amongst the Kronstadt Sailors, who would prove so pivotal in the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power. In these remarkable memoirs, which cover the period between the February and October Revolutions in 1917, Raskolnikov gives a first-hand account of how the Bolsheviks built their forces in the navy, describes the setbacks of the July Days (during which he, alongside Trotsky, was imprisoned by Kerensky’s Provisional Government), and paints a vivid picture of the October insurrection and its immediate aftermath. By F.F. Raskolnikov
Quotes of the Day:
The Trillion Dollar Cabinet ‘Piggies’ Plunder the Public Trough: Cash in: the rich guys in Trump’s cabinet who can’t resist public money By Joanna Walters 
