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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:
Quotes of the Day:
According to a Memphis jury’s verdict on December 8, 1999, in the wrongful death lawsuit of the King family versus Loyd Jowers “and other unknown co-conspirators,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own government. Almost 32 years after King’s murder at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968, a court extended the circle of responsibility for the assassination beyond the late scapegoat James Earl Ray to the United States government. . . . Hatred and fear of King deepened, Lawson said, in response to his plan to hold the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. King wanted to shut down the nation’s capital in the spring of 1968 through massive civil disobedience until the government agreed to abolish poverty. King saw the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike as the beginning of a nonviolent revolution that would redistribute income. “I have no doubt,” Lawson said, “that the government viewed all this seriously enough to plan his assassination.” . . . Pepper went a step beyond saying government agencies were responsible for the assassination. To whom in turn were those murderous agencies responsible? Not so much to government officials per se, Pepper asserted, as to the economic powerholders they represented who stood in the even deeper shadows behind the FBI, Army Intelligence, and their affiliates in covert action. By 1968, Pepper told the jury, “And today it is much worse in my view” – “the decision-making processes in the United States were the representatives, the footsoldiers of the very economic interests that were going to suffer as a result of these times of changes [being activated by King].” To say that U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the verge of the Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that the economic powers that be (which dictate the policies of those agencies) killed him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign, King posed a threat to those powers of a non-violent revolutionary force. Just how determined they were to stop him before he reached Washington was revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the plot to kill him. — Jim Douglas, The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis
Excerpt from MLK’s The Other America Speech Stanford, University, April 14, 1967: . . . A man was on the plane with me some weeks ago and he came and talked with me and he said, “The problem, Dr. King, that I see with what you all are doing is that every time I see you and other Negroes, you’re protesting and you aren’t doing anything for yourselves.” And he went on to tell me that he was very poor at one time, and he was able to make it by doing something for himself. “Why don’t you teach your people,” he said, “to lift themselves by their own bootstraps?” And then he went on to say other groups faced disadvantages – the Irish, the Italians and he went down the line. And I said to him that it does not help the Negro, it only deepens his frustration, upon feeling insensitive people to say to him that other ethnic groups who migrated or were immigrants to this country less than a hundred years ago or so have gotten beyond him and he came here some 344 years ago. And I went on to remind him that the Negro came to this country involuntarily in chains, while others came voluntarily. I went on to remind him that no other racial group has been a slave on American soil. I went on to remind him that the other problem that we have faced over the years is that this society placed a stigma on the color of the Negro, on the color of his skin because he was black. Doors were closed to him that were not closed to other groups. And I finally said to him that it’s a nice thing to say to people that you ought to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And the fact is that millions of Negroes, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. And they find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs. Now one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation. . . .
Videos of the Day:
US Blocks UN Investigation into Israeli Military Killings in Gaza (pt. 1/2) Reacting to Trump administration blocking of a UN investigation into Israeli military’s killings of Palestinians, Col. Larry Wilkerson says the United States is “in the back pocket of Israel like we have never been associated with any other country in the world.
Wall Street Bankers’ Executive Bonuses Highlight Worsening Inequality Wall Street Bankers’ Executive Bonuses Highlight Worsening InequalityBanks are collecting money from every corner of this economy, becoming “the special winner in the capitalist game of our time,” says economist Richard D. Wolff. The bonuses “strike another blow for that growing inequality between the rich and everybody else in the United States”
U.S.:
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Bolton is Just One Face of U.S. Imperial Crisis: The US imperial system is beset by “crises at every level,” said Sara Flounders, of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). The ruling class is consumed with “enormous frustration that U.S. imperialism can’t control the whole world, and the only solutions they can put forward are war, war and more war” — leading them to turn to serial warmongers like John Bolton, President Trump’s new national security advisor.
A Setback for Cop-Control in Newark: If a New Jersey court decision diluting the powers of the local Civilian Complaint Review Board is allowed to stand, the Newark-based People’s Organization for Progress may be compelled to give up its seat on the body. “In our estimation, if the board doesn’t have subpoena power and investigatory power, it’s a toothless body,” said POP chairman Larry Hamm. By Kyle Fraser, Black Agenda Radio producerThe
Movement Most in Need of “Political Education”: “We still have too many Black people not being real about our current state of affairs,” said Shannon Jones, of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability, following protests in Manhattan against the police killing of Stephon Clark, in Sacramento, California. Political education should be a top priority. “A lot of our bandwidth is spent among ourselves discussing basic, universal principles and facts about the way this country operates,” said Jones.
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:
Joining Nationwide Teacher Rebellion, Tens of Thousands Rally for Education in Oklahoma The $50 million in school funding that was included in a bill last week “will buy less than one textbook per student,” said the head of the state teacher’s union by Julia Conley
Economy: 
Will the Stock Market’s Tech Rout End Like the Dot.com Bust? Last year the iconic investor, Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, penned his annual missive to shareholders. It contained this nugget: “Above all, it’s our market system – an economic traffic cop ably directing capital, brains and labor – that has created America’s abundance. This system has also been the primary factor in allocating rewards.” If that statement is true, then the $2.3 trillion that the U.S. stock market vaporized over the past two months is nothing for investors to worry about. But if the market is not efficiently directing capital, if it’s a system where everything from stock research, to high frequency trading, to Dark Pools, to over-the-counter derivatives, to revolving-door regulators is rigged to benefit insiders, then buckle your seat belts for the wild ride that’s coming. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Egypt: landslide victory for electoral abstention reflects collapse in Sisi’s authority Presidential elections were held in Egypt last week, in accordance with a formal concession to the Egyptian Revolution in the 2014 Constitution. This was the first electoral test of President Sisi’s authority since he was officially inaugurated back in 2014. Despite the risible contempt for democracy demonstrated by Sisi and his regime at every stage of the electoral process, early estimates of the results indicate this is a test he has comprehensively failed. By Hamid Alizadeh 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
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.
Carlos Latuff: Neocons Tighten Grip on Trump Foreign Policy
