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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.
Image of the Day:
Contrary to the myth of the mass media, the working class and minority Workers Have ‘not come a long way’ since Martin Luther King Was Assassinated! Actually they are a lot worse than in 1965! (According to Shadow Government Statistics Real Unemployment has been over 20% since 2009 and Real Weekly Wages have tragically dropped from $320 a week in 1965 to less than $160 in 2018!): “. . . And so, as a result of all of this, we see many problems existing today that are growing more difficult. It’s something that is often overlooked, but Negroes generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North, schools are more segregated today than they were in 1954 when the Supreme Court’s decision on desegregation was rendered. Economically, the Negro is worse off today than he was 15 and 20 years ago. And so the unemployment rate among whites at one time was about the same as the unemployment rate among Negroes. But today the unemployment rate among Negroes is twice that of whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50 percent less than Whites. . . .” —Martin Luther King’s The Other America Speech at Stanford (April 15, 2007)
Stephon Clark died as did black people who died at the hands of Klu Klux Klan raiders during the Reconstruction era,(1) as did thousands of blacks lynched over the course of decades, as did so many killed in dozens of massacres carried out by white people between the Civil War and the 1920s. (2) Activists and potential victims sought relief from the long terror campaign. On December 9, 1948 the UN General Assembly approved its “Convention on … the Crime of Genocide.” Responding, the left-leaning Civil Rights Congress in 1951 delivered a 240-page petition to the General Assembly. Its title was: “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government against the Negro People.” (3) The petitioners condemned the United States for “mass murder of its own nationals” and “institutionalized oppression and persistent slaughter of the Negro people in the United States on a basis of “race.” They cited as evidence “thousands of Negros who over the years have been beaten to death on chain gangs and in the back rooms of sheriff’s offices, in the cells of county jails, who have been framed and murdered by sham legal forms and by a legal bureaucracy.” Terror and killings represent only one aspect of a system of racial oppression manifesting in the United Stated first as slavery. But oppression has assumed many forms. They include efforts taken to ensure less than decent lives for black people. Poor schooling for black children is one of them. The death March 25 of Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas served recently as a reminder. Brown was the lead plaintiff in the famous Brown v. the Board of Education case which concluded on May 17, 1954. That day the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of public education is illegal. Separate schools, it reasoned, make for inferior education. Hopes were raised, but then came disappointment. Today, U.S schools remain segregated by race. And educational outcomes for black students lag in comparison with those of white students — Taking a Long Look Backward to Explain a Police Killing in Sacramento
Videos of the Day:
US, Saudi CEOs Sign $20B Deals in NYC as Protesters Condemn Catastrophic War on Yemen 200 corporate executives dined at the Saudi-US CEO Forum in New York City alongside Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while protesters outside called for an end to the devastating war on Yemen – Ben Norton reports.
MLK Documentary: ‘When Silence Becomes Betrayal’ On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the revolutionary Martin Luther King, Jr., join us for a screening of a new documentary on MLK’s opposition to the Vietnam War, based on King’s April 30th, 1967 speech.
U.S.:
Mass Deception and the Prelude to World War In Libya, NATO bombed a path to Tripoli to help its proxy forces on the ground oust Gaddafi. Tens of thousands lost their lives and that country’s social fabric and infrastructure now lies in ruins. Gaddafi was murdered and his plans to assert African independence and undermine Western (not least French) hegemony on that continent have been rendered obsolete. by Colin Todhunter
Environment:
The Oil Companies Knowing have been destroying the planet, in their quest for profits.: New Internal Shell Oil Climate Documents Revealed Newly unearthed internal documents from Shell Oil Company provide new insights into what they knew about climate change and when they knew it. Documents unearthed by Jelmer Mommers of De Correspondent are being published today on Climate Files, a project of the Climate Investigations Center. These documents date back to 1988 and show intense interest in climate change internally at Shell. A “CONFIDENTIAL” 1988 document titled, “The Greenhouse Effect”, details Shell’s extensive knowledge of climate change impacts and implications. It also reveals an internal Shell climate science program dating back to 1981, well before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded. By the Climate Investigations Center
1988 Shell Confidential Report “The Greenhouse Effect” The confidential report, “The Greenhouse Effect,” was authored by members of Shell’s Greenhouse Effect Working Group and based on a 1986 study, though the document reveals Shell was commissioning “greenhouse effect” reports as early as 1981. Report highlights include:
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A thorough review of climate science literature, including acknowledgement of fossil fuels’ dominant role in driving greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, Shell quantifies its own products’ contribution to global CO2 emissions.
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A detailed analysis of potential climate impacts, including rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and human migration.
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A discussion of the potential impacts to the fossil fuel sector itself, including legislation, changing public sentiment, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. Shell concludes that active engagement from the energy sector is desirable.
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A cautious response to uncertainty in scientific models, pressing for sincere consideration of solutions even in the face of existing debates.
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A warning to take policy action early, even before major changes are observed to the climate.
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In short, by 1988 Shell was not only aware of the potential threats posed by climate change, it was open about its own role in creating the conditions for a warming world. Similar documents by ExxonMobil, oil trade associations, and utility companies have emerged in recent years, though this Shell document is a rare, early, and concrete accounting of climate responsibility by an oil major.
Flint residents are being punished for not paying for poisoned water The ‘fix’ for Flint promised by politicians never came, instead residents face a final indignity – residents’ water supply is being cut off for unpaid bills for water that made them sick By Anthony Baxter
Despite Overwhelming Opposition From Residents, Michigan Permits Nestlé to Draw More Groundwater for Bottling Out of 81,862 comments filed, only 75 were reportedly in favor of granting the permit. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has granted Nestlé Waters a permit to increase groundwater withdrawal from 250 gallons per minute to 400 gallons per minute from its White Pine Springs well for the purpose of bottling drinking drinking water. The approval comes despite near universal opposition from residents, who cite the Swiss food and beverage giant‘s nominal $200-a-year fee to pump water from its wells. The fee will not change with the new permit. By Lorraine Chow 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
The death of Martin Luther King It was the issues of poverty, class and anti-war that were pushing Dr. King further in the direction of Malcolm X. For this reason, he was murdered. We are republishing here extracts from a 2006 article by Roland Sheppard. Roland is a retired Business Representative of Painters District Council #8 in San Francisco. He has been a lifelong social activist and socialist. He regularly attended Malcolm X’s meetings in Harlem and was in charge of defence whenever Malcolm X spoke at the Militant Labour Forum in New York City from 1964-1965. He witnessed Malcolm X’s assassination at the Audubon Ballroom, on 21 February 1965. The death of Martin Luther King
MLK: A Snap Shot in Time “There is no reason to believe that Dr. King would have abandoned his pro-peace (and “democratic socialist”) principles if he were alive today.” The line of preachers stretched 100 yards to the door of Columbus, Georgia’s radio station WOKS, where the pastors had each been allotted a few minutes to testify to their deep commitment to the ideals espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., shot down in Memphis three days earlier. Nearly every Black minister in town was there, waiting his turn to lie. Although they would sound like an amen corner for “the Movement” on this mournful Sunday morning, the assembled clergymen had, in fact, acted as the front line of resistance to King’s gospel of nonviolent confrontation with the white powers-that-be. By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
Corruption, Complacency, Complicity Lead at Arkansas Baptist College An investigative report was published previously about the corruption at Little Rock’s Arkansas Baptist College exposing major forces of Big Business, their collaboration with many Clinton government appointees, many who are African Americans and on the college Board of Trustees. It was illustrated that ABC carries out debauchery in the name of Black education. This follow up includes specific profiles of the college’s Board of Trustees whose distinguished careers include selling Black prisoners’ blood, money laundering for drug dealers, real estate scams, spying on the Black freedom movement, among much else. Arkansas Baptist College (ABC) is at once the hope and despair for certain Black people in Little Rock. While some still imagine that in its early years it was a glorious vindication of Black people’s capacity for self-reliance, today only the lunatic fringe of the community remain so deluded. The venality at ABC was recently exposed from a perspective inside the Black community. By Attala Nasir 
Gunmen Raymond Nat Turner, By BAR poet-in-residence
Hm, March 18th my Mothers birthday I
heard lead bees stung the young mans
Back, severed vertebrae, collapsed his lung,
left his arm bits of boneon a ruby red river
Tear droughts betray me, though
Another Mothers son was stolennot
Lost. Though he didnt pass away
on Disney sets of sci-fi
Where pigs fly
in firing squad formations,
under color of law, as
Gunmen rerun-men:
Raising right hooves, testi-lying
about muted body-cams and
Special effects, puffing up Black men
as Hulk; Transmuting them into Black
Magic stunt men, simultaneously running
Away and Moonwalking toward officers
Superman metallurgists, sorcerers turning
Wallets, candy bars, car keys, phones into guns
Labor
Economy:
Today’s Markets Show the Need to Return to Defined Benefit Pension Plans The 401(k) was never a genuine plan to help Americans better prepare for retirement. Like everything else that Wall Street spends hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby for each year, the 401(k) was a wealth-transfer mechanism to enrich the denizens of Wall Street while transforming the mindset of the rank and file worker into shareholder capitalists. The fantasy expanded as the “ownership society,” during the George W. Bush administration. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
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.
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