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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:
Imperialism and the Arms Industry: When we think of gun violence we must connect the dots to imperialism, the economic, political, and social system dominating our world today. Imperialism has been termed the “highest stage of capitalism” for its ruthlessness in the hunt for profit. Where does the gun industry fit into imperialism’s blueprint? In 2016, ten companies alone produced more than two-thirds of the total guns put on the U.S. market. In 2015 alone, the industry made $1.5 billion in profit, and since then, revenues have risen by almost $4 billion. While one might think that gun sales would go down following mass shootings, they have actually skyrocketed. A research report on guns & ammunition manufacturing by IBIS concludes that “[t]he current administration’s intention of increasing defense spending has led to a drastic surge in demand for industry products.” The gun industry cannot be separated from the multi-billion dollar military industrial complex. Manufacturers like Sturm Ruger, Remington Outdoor, and Smith & Wesson belong right up there alongside companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. As part of the military industrial complex, the U.S. gun industry (backed by the government, as we’ll see below) actively seeks a market internationally. Last year, the Philippine military and marines–notorious for their human rights violations against indigenous youth, poor farmers, and activists–received 300 M4 carbines, 200 Glock 21 pistols, and almost 100 sniper rifles, among other weapons, from the U.S. Short of the actual sale of weapons, U.S. military aid enables violence in other countries, as well. Philippine president Duterte’s bloody drug war has benefitted from $15 million in U.S. aid. Meanwhile, soldiers of the Zionist state of Israel use the billions of dollars in U.S. funding they receive to shoot Palestinians “for fun.” As the Trump administration and U.S. imperialism maintain wars abroad, there will always be a market for war products. And as long as the gun industry overproduces for the sake of profit, lethal weapons will readily be available for mass shootings around the country or wherever the industry finds profit. – Op-Ed | The Smoking Gun Behind Gun Violence In The U.S.
Videos of the Day:
Mike Pompeo: A Koch Brothers Ally Just Became a Global Threat If the Senate confirms longtime climate denier Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, it would put a Koch Brothers proxy in one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government. Pompeo’s “history of business subservience” doesn’t bode well for climate policy, says Greenpeace researcher Connor Gibson
Former Black Panther Herman Bell to Be Released After 45 Years in Prison After the New York State Parole Board determined Herman Bell’s release to be low risk and reasonable, New York police, aligned with tabloid news, went on a racist crusade depicting Bell as a threat
U.S.
Adults Engage in Idiocy: School Bosses Across America Go ‘Buttheat’ on Anti-Violence Student Protests Ten days before American student outrage over gun violence triggered multitudes across the U.S and around the world to join in “March For Our Lives” protests; many US high school educators and other adults provided students with strident lessons in assholelisity. by Linn Washington Jr.
Lying Is a Fundamental Part of American Police Culture Cops lie under oath so often they even have a nickname for the practice.Police officers lie under oath in court so often that they’ve even given the practice a nickname. “Behind closed doors, we call it testilying,” New York City police officer Pedro Serrano told the New York Times. “You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit.” By Kali Holloway
Zuckerberg’s refusal to testify branded ‘absolutely astonishing’ Head of committee investigating fake news urges Facebook founder to ‘think again if he has any care for people that use his company’s services’ Mark Zuckerberg has come under intense fire from the UK parliamentary committee investigating fake news after the Facebook head refused an invitation to testify in front of MPs for a third time. BY Alex Hern
‘The Gig Economy’ Is the New Term for Serfdom A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in the last four months, including one Feb. 5 in which livery driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall. By Chris Hedges
Environment:
Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming Everybody’s heard about global warming. It is one of the most advertised existential events of all time. Who isn’t aware? However, there’s a new kid on the block. An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity. For the immediate future, the Paris Accord is riding the wrong horse, as global warming is a long-term project compared to the insect catastrophe happening right now! Where else is found 40% to 90% species devastation? by Robert Hunziker
This Land is Your Land : Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era Tongass is the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, with trees more than 1,000 years old. But a pro-logging effort could uproot them by Brendan Jones in Sitka, Alaska
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
It’s Getting Worse! Fukushima Has Now Contaminated Over 30% Of Earth’s Oceans The Fukushima nuclear disaster was a nuclear meltdown that forced over 160,000 people to flee their homes, and while the kind of damage that was done on land is nothing to rinse your hands of, doing so with water may not be the safest and healthiest option. The disaster has recently been found to have now contaminated the water of over one-third of the world’s oceans, a destructive path that appears to show no clear signs of slowing down anytime soon. By Laney.C
Texas sinkholes: oil and gas drilling increases threat, scientists warn Ground rising and falling in region that has been ‘punctured like a pin cushion’ since the 1940s, new study finds By Tom Dart
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Baraka on Leftists That Collaborate with Empire :“We have not made a revolution in the U.S., but we have all these ‘revolutionary theorists’ that know exactly how to do that,” said Black Alliance
U.S. at Peace? Some Americans Think So : The U.S. Senate voted down, 55 to 44, a bill co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders that would have ended U.S.
Outlaw Poverty, Says Activist: Nyle Fort, an activist with the Poor People’s Campaign, was among the speakers at a New York City event designed to bring Black and immigrant communities together on issues of mass incarceration and deportation. Fort urged the crowd to “dream of a world where poverty is illegal.” The event, held at Manhattan’s Holy Rood Church, was titled “Break Down Walls and Prison Plantations: Mumia, Migrants and Movements for Liberation.”
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Labor:
Economy:
Trump and Brexit: Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Gives Bombshell Testimony to British Lawmakers Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who has thus far exposed how Steve Bannon and his money-backer, billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, created Cambridge Analytica, which harvested private data from 50 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, testified for almost four hours this morning before British lawmakers in the Commons Culture Committee. His testimony was explosive at times. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
France in struggle as rail workers prepare for strike The latest issue of Révolution (French organ of the IMT) will be published in the wake of a social movement that could mark a turning point in the correlation of forces between our camp (the youth and workers) and the bosses, of which Macron’s government is the executive body. A rail strike, starting from 3 April, will be the focal point of the struggle. But, both for us and for our enemies, the significance of this strike goes beyond the fate of the SNCF [Société nationale des chemins de fer français: France’s national state-owned railway company] and its employees.
Venezuela: High-Level Arrests at PDVSA Refinery for Alleged Graft Former PDVSA Vice President Jesus Luongo and four others stand accused of embezzling large sums of state funds. Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, announced Tuesday new arrests in an ongoing anti-graft investigation into the country’s oil industry . These arrests are the latest episode in the government’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which includes dozens facing charges in state oil company PDVSA as well as other state-run enterprises. The latest figures apprehended include a former PDVSA executive as well as other top administrators at the Paraguana oil refinery in Falcon state in western Venezuela. According to Saab, four people have been arrested and a warrant issued for a fifth. “Criminal [PDVSA] administrators colluded with criminal businesspeople to embezzle from the nation,” the top prosecutor declared in a press conference on March 20. By Cira Pascual Marquina
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Want to lower the abortion rate? Support pro-choice policies The chief lesson of a new report is that making abortion illegal or hard to get doesn’t end abortion, it just makes it less safeWant to lower the abortion rate and prevent maternal deaths worldwide? Support pro-choice policies. That’s the takeaway from a new report from the Guttmacher Institute, which looks at abortion around the world. The chief lesson of the report is one pro-choice advocates have known for years: that making abortion illegal or hard to get doesn’t end abortion, it just makes it less safe. And opposition to abortion tends to come along with opposition to contraception and women’s rights more broadly – and the limited contraception access that results means a higher abortion rate. Jill Filipovic
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.
Quotes of the Day:
Theft is Part of U.S. DNA: You can’t understand the present-day United States if you don’t know its bloody history, said Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous People’s History of the United State